AMES BOWEN EVERHART. 









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A MEMORIAL 



OF 



THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 



James Bowen Everhart 



EDITED BY 



THOS. LOUIS OGIER 







NEW YORK & LONDON 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

S^e ^nickerbocher ^wsa 
1889 

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COPYRIGHT BY 

THOS. LOUIS OGIER 



Press of 

G. P. Putnam's Sows 

New York 



3r 

4 



THIS VOLUME IS 

DEDICATED 

TO 

THE FRIENDS 

OF THE 

LATE JAMES BOWEN EVERHART 



111 



PREFACE. 

The highest tribute that can be paid to the 
memory of those we admire, is to cherish their 
excellent qualities, manly virtues, and intel- 
lectual attainments. Coleridge says : " What 
is that which first strikes us, and strikes us at 
once, in a man of education ; and which, among 
educated men, so instantly distinguishes the 
man of superior mind. ... It is the unpre- 
meditated and evidently habitual arrangement 
of his words, grounded on the habit of foresee- 
ing, in each integral part, or (more plainly) in 
every sentence, the whole that he then intends 
to communicate." Such marked and decided 
characteristics were found in the life of our 
departed friend, the late James Bowen Ever- 
hart. 

Thos. Louis Ogier. 

West Chester, Pa., i88g. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

CHAPTER I. 

History of the Family i 

CHAPTER n. 

The Student and Lawyer 6 

CHAPTER HI. 
The Tra^-eller 13 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Traveller — Continwd ... .22 

CHAPTER V. 
Author and Poet 26 

CHAPTER VI. 

Patriot and Soldier 39 

CHAPTER VII. 

State Senator 43 

CHAPTER VIII. 

His Eulogy on General Wayne in the Senate — 

Retirement from State Senate ... 54 

CHAPTER IX. 

Congressional Contests 75 

CHAPTER X. 

The Congressman 83 

vii 



vlli Contents. 

CHAPTER XI. ''^^^ 

Illness and Death— Tributes of Respect . . 97 

CHAPTER XII. 

Newspaper Tributes 120 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Closing Services 



144 



LIFE AND CHARACTER 



OF 



JAMES BOWEN EVERHART. 



CHAPTER I. 

IT is about two and a half centuries since 
the ancestry of James Bowen Everhart 
came to this country, from the Kingdom 
of Wurtemberg. The family first located in 
the State of New York, and about the middle 
of the last century the great-grandfather of 
Mr. Everhart, moved from that State to Penn- 
sylvania and took up lands in East Vincent 
township, Chester county, then an almost 
endless forest. A son, James Everhart, was a 
youth during the Revolution, but, like other 
brave and patriotic young men of that day, 
shouldered his musket and went forth to 
battle for the infant Republic. 

On one occasion while he was with a small 



2 Life and Character of 

body of scouts in the vicinity of Valley Forge, 
during the winter of 1778, they were pursued 
by the enemy, and while young Everhart was 
making his way on the ice to the opposite 
side of the Schuylkill river, it broke. He 
was plunged into the water and with British 
bullets whistling around him reached the other 
shore in safety. He lived to see his great- 
grandchildren reach the age of maturity, and 
died a nonagenarian. His sons were James, 
John, and William. The last-named was the 
father of the subject of this sketch. 

William Everhart was born in 1785, and 
after acquiring a country-school education, 
studied the profession of surveyor. About 
the time he came of age, he, in connection 
with his profession, engaged in the mercantile 
business. In 18 12, during the second war with 
Great Britain, he raised a rifle company of 
eighty picked men, and offered their services 
to the government ; they were not called into 
service. In 18 14 Mr. Everhart married Miss 
Hannah Matlack, a granddaughter of Isaiah 
Matlack. It was while engaged in the mercan- 
tile business in West Whiteland township, 
whither he had moved some years previous, 



yames Bowen Everhart, 3 

that he sailed for England, in the year 1822, 
for the purpose of making extensive purchases. 
Mr. Everhart sailed from New York in the 
ill-fated packet ship Albion^ bound for Liver- 
pool. The vessel, when nearly at the end 
of its voyage, was, on April 22d, wrecked near 
the Old Head of Kinsale, on the Irish coast. 
The captain and all of the crew excepting 
eight were drowned, and of the twenty-five 
cabin passengers Mr. Everhart alone was saved. 
Among the prominent passengers who found 
the sea for their grave were General Lefebvre 
Desonouetts, Colonel A. J. Prevost, Major 
William Gough, a brother of Lord Gough, 
and Professor Fisher of Yale College. 

Mr. Everhart, with almost superhuman ef- 
forts, saved his life by clinging to the nearly 
perpendicular rock, upon which he had only 
sufficient space to rest one foot. In this try- 
ing position he remained until dawn, being 
continually drenched with the angry billows. 
He was rescued by the people, who lowered a 
rope over the headland. Mr. Everhart was 
very kindly treated and cared for by the warm- 
hearted Irish people. He always took an 
interest in the welfare of the Celtic race, 



4 Life and Character of 

whether in America or upon their native 
heath, and in the time of famine no cry for 
succor reached this country, that he did not 
hear and respond to with a liberal contribu- 
tion. His children have ever remembered the 
kindness to their father by the Irish people 
when he was a castaway on their shores, and 
like him have responded to calls for aid in 
time of famine. Mr. Everhart, in that disas- 
ter, lost ten thousand dollars in gold ; some 
time after, the British authorities found about 
that sum of money and offered it to Mr. 
Everhart, if he would make oath that he could 
identify it as his own. This he could not see 
his way clearly to do, and declined to comply 
with the conditions. 

In 1824 he moved to West Chester, and pur- 
chased several extensive tracts of farm lands 
within the borough limits. He opened streets, 
which he donated to the corporation ; erected 
a number of business houses and dwellings, 
and performed many other acts for the ad- 
vancement and prosperity of the borough. In 
1836 he was elected Chief Burgess, serving in 
that capacity for two years. 

In 1852 he was elected on the Whig ticket 



James Boweii Everhart, 5 

to Congress, and before his term expired he 
delivered — on May 19, 1854 — a very able speech 
on the Kansas-Nebraska bill of Senator Doug- 
lass. In the course of his remarks, he, in 
almost prophetic language, predicted the 
dreadful results which would follow the pass- 
age of the bill ; he said : " Its authors are 
sowing a wind, but will reap a whirlwind." He 
declined a renomination in 1854, and resumed 
his mercantile profession. In 1867 he retired 
from business, after upwards of sixty years of 
active business life. He died on October 30, 
1868, lamented by the entire community. 



CHAPTER II. 

JAMES BOWEN EVERHART, the third 
son of William and Hannah Everhart, was 
born in West Whiteland township, Ches- 
ter county, July 26, 1821. He received his early 
education at Bolmar's Academy in West 
Chester; his preceptor, Antonie Bolmar, was a 
French gentleman and soldier. After finishing 
at this school he entered Princeton College, 
from which he graduated in 1842 witha class of 
sixty others. Among his classmates were many 
who have acquired distinction, as the Hon. 
George H. Boker, of Philadelphia, ex-Minis- 
ter to Turkey ; the late Thomas W. Catrell, 
Ph.D., Professor in Lincoln University; Rev. 
Elijah R. Craven, D.D., Secretary of the 
Presbyterian Board of Publication ; Rev. Jo- 
seph F. Garrison, D.D., Professor in the Divin- 
ity School of the Protestant Episcopal Church 
of Philadelphia; Thomas N. McCarter, LL.D., 
of Newark, New Jersey; William Potter Ross, 
who was for a time Chief of the Cherokee 

6 



James Bowen Everhart, 7 

Nation ; and the late Doctor Robert King 
Stone, Professor in the Medical College of 
Washington, D. C. 

While at Princeton Mr. Everhart was a 
member of the Cleosophic Society, and whilst 
maintaining a high rank for scholarship, 
especially in the classics, he was distinguished 
for his ability as a speaker and writer. His 
friend, Rev. John T. Duffield, D.D., Professor 
of Mathematics in the College of New Jer- 
sey at Princeton, and who graduated the year 
preceding Mr. Everhart, thus writes of him : 

*' Mr. Everhart was the most prominent of 
the four representatives of the Cleo Society in 
what is here known as ' The Junior Orator 
Contest.' I have ever admired and appreciated 
his intellectual ability, his sterling integrity, 
and his rare nobility of character. He was 
a broad-cultured, high-minded, large-hearted, 
amiable, genial gentleman." 

Mr. Everhart was one of the founders of 
one of the college literary periodicals, which 
has been continued to the present day — for 
the first year it was called The Gem, afterwards 
and at present it is called The Nassau Literary 
Magazine. 



8 Life and Character of 

Rev. E. R. Craven, D.D., in writing of Mr. 
Everhart, says : ** He had one of the brightest 
minds in our class, and was one of our finest 
scholars, excelling both in the classics and in 
mathematics, and he was regarded as one of 
our best writers and speakers." 

After his graduation he returned to West 
Chester and commenced the study of law, 
under the preceptorship of Joseph J. Lewis, 
Esq., one of the prominent members of 
the bar of Chester county ; he remained with 
Mr. Lewis for one year and then entered the 
Harvard Law School at Cambridge, Massa- 
chusetts, where he passed a year, and then 
returned home, but to better perfect himself 
in his chosen calling he became a student of 
the late Hon. William M. Meredith, a leading 
attorney of the bar of Philadelphia. On Feb- 
ruary 4, 1845, he was admitted to practise his 
profession at the bar of Chester county and of 
Philadelphia. 

For three years he applied himself to the 
law with such care that he became recognized 
as one of the most thoughtful and painstaking 
attorneys at the bar. He then relinquished 
practice and went upon an extended foreign 



James Bowen Everhart, 9 

tour. During that time he was for several 
months a student at the University of Edin- 
burgh, Scotland, from which he went to the 
University of Berh'n, and there studied Inter- 
national Law, receiving diplomas from both 
these universities. On his return home he re- 
sumed his practice, which avocation he pursued 
for nine years, retiring in 1861. During his ser- 
vice at the bar he became recognized as a de- 
fendant's counsellor, and in all his twelve years 
of practice he only assisted the Commonwealth 
in one criminal prosecution. His field was a 
varied one, covering nearly every branch of 
law, both in the criminal and in the civil 
courts. In the former he defended in six 
murder trials, not one of his clients being 
called upon to suffer capital punishment. One 
of these cases was for poisoning by the admin- 
istration of arsenic in whisky. The woman 
was charged with having assisted a man in the 
administration of the poisoned liquor to her 
husband. On motion of Mr. Everhart, one of 
the counsel, they were tried separately, and 
the man was found guilty of murder in the 
first degree. Mr. Everhart made a motion for 
a new trial, at which he made a very able 



lo Life and Character of 

argument, and succeeded in securing to the con- 
victed man another chance for his life. When 
the second trial terminated, his client was found 
guilty in the second degree, and the woman 
was acquitted. 

This case at that time was perhaps without 
precedent in the annals of criminal law in 
Pennsylvania. He also conducted a homi- 
cide case in which he succeeded in having 
jurisdiction ousted, because the blow was 
given in Chester county while death ensued 
in Philadelphia. There was a similarity be- 
tween this case in its legal phase, and that 
of the murdered President Garfield, who was 
shot in Washington but died in New Jersey. 
In one of the other homicide cases Mr. Ever- 
hart was threatened with bodily harm, by a 
friend of the dead man, if he defended the ac- 
cused. He was also importuned by his friends 
not to enter into the case, as the man who 
made the threats was a desperate character, 
and, moreover, he would lose every friend he 
had in the locality where the crime had been 
committed. Mr. Everhart, however, did not 
allow either threats or friendly solicitation to 
deter him, and defended the prisoner with 



jfames Bowen Everhart, 1 1 

such success that his life was saved. In this 
course of action, he showed forth the strong 
character for which he was so noted in later 
years, and demonstrated to both enemy and 
friend that he was not to be deterred in his 
convictions of justice, and the right of a de- 
fendant to have the best defense that the 
law furnished. 

In civil suits he was equally successful. In 
one of this class of suits he was engaged as 
attorney for a company which was prosecuted 
for corrupting water used in the manufacture 
of paper. He had several chemical experiments 
made in open court before the jury. In so do- 
ing Mr. Everhart exhibited an original yet 
convincing argument for his client. In an- 
other suit for divorce he laid claim on the 
husband to pay the counsel fees of the wife, 
without regard to the results of the case, 
which claim was for the first time allowed 
in the Chester county courts, though it had 
been recognized in the Philadelphia courts. 
In an important quo warranto case before the 
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, involving the 
charter of a railroad company, he was suddenly 
left alone, by his elder colleague, when the 



1 2 James Bowen Everhart. 

case was called up. He showed considerable 
courage in opposing, single-handed, three of 
the ablest lawyers in Pennsylvania, who were 
also flanked by attorneys of well known fame 
as advisers. In fact, during the few years that 
he acted as a counsellor, he managed all man- 
ner of cases. His field of action was not con- 
fined to Chester county, but he tried cases in 
several counties of the State. He had a re- 
markable faculty of adapting himself to any 
character of case. After he retired from prac- 
tice, the younger members of the bar for many 
years sought his advice in intricate cases. He 
was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court 
of the United States, on January 24, 1854, 
on motion of Hon. Reverdy Johnson. 



CHAPTER III. 

IN 1848 Mr, Everhart left home for an 
extended foreign tour. He visited the 
British Isles, the principal nations of the Euro» 
pean continent, and parts of Asia and Africa. 
His first point was through the British King- 
dom ; he then crossed the English Channel into 
France, then a republic with Louis Napoleon 
Bonaparte, as its President, whom he saw and 
described in his " Miscellanies " as a man ** be- 
low the ordinary height ; his nose prominent ; 
his eyelashes long ; his glance steady, but 
downward like the first Napoleon ; his mous- 
tache heavy and dark, shading his mouth. His 
face was impassive — calm, passionless, thought- 
ful, and inscrutable ; neither repelling by pride, 
nor attracting by sympathy, betokening a ge- 
nius not to be seduced or daunted, but leaving 
it in doubt whether his instincts were good or 
evil." This description is an excellent example 
of the close scrutiny with which Mr. Everhart 
studied people and deduced his opinion of them. 

13 



14 Life and Character of 

From France he passed into Italy, by way of 
the Simplon Pass, over the Alps. Italy was not 
then the Italy of to-day, but was divided into 
numerous petty kingdoms, all subject indi- 
rectly to the will of the Pope. While in 
Rome Mr. Everhart visited Pope Pius IX. by 
an appointment. He thus describes the head 
of the Roman Catholic Church in his " Miscel- 
lanies " : " The Chamberlain of his Holiness, 
Monseigneur De Medici, took me by the hand 
and presented me by mentioning my name 
and country, and retired. I was left alone 
with the Pope. He was very plainly attired in 
a long gown of white cloth and a skull-cap, 
and seated at a writing-table. As I approached 
him, bowing ceremoniously three times, he in- 
clined towards me with a smile. His figure 
was full, tending to corpulency, but did not 
seem tall. He had a beautiful face, full of in- 
telligence, and almost womanly in its expres- 
sion of mildness. It was not furrowed by time 
nor saddened by misfortune. He spoke French 
fluently ; his voice was gentle, his manner 
cheerful. . . . The interview lasted about ten 
minutes ; he handed me a souvenier, as he 
termed it. It was a small red case containing 



y antes Bowen Everhart. 1 5 

a medal, with his own ^^'gy on one side and 
the Virgin's on the other, around which was 
written, ' laetitiae nostrae causa.' " 

At Naples Mr. Everhart climbed to Vesu- 
vius and looked into its crater while in a state 
of partial eruption. Of this terrific volcano he 
gives a vivid piece of pen-painting. He says : 

*' From Resina, a small village, we started on 
horseback for the top of Vesuvius. There 
were evident signs of an imminent irruption. 
With a fellow hanging to each pony's tail, 
passing through groups of children and mendi- 
cants, by vines and mulberries, round curves 
and over stones, racing and shouting, we 
reached the hermitage. The air was pleasant, 
the view vast and splendid ; the wine sweet, 
and piously recommended as * tears of Christ.* 
Passing hence over waves of lava, which seemed 
to have frozen as they heaved, we gained the 
base of a declivity which no beast could climb. 
We dismounted and up the long slippery steep ; 
over pumice rock, ankle-deep in ashes ; leaning 
on sticks, clutching at loose cinders, slipping 
over patches of snow; amidst- the importuni- 
ties of beggars, guides, and hucksters, we toiled, 
perspired, and stopped. Refreshed with rest 



1 6 Life and Character of 

and lunch, after many falls and bruises, red of 
face, panting and exhausted, we stood on the 
old crater. 

" It extended around like a plain ; the sur- 
face was broken by small elevations and deep, 
glowing fissures. Having ascended higher, we 
glanced down into the huge volcanic furnace. 
This crater was vast in its circuit, high above 
the sea, indefinitely deep. The blaze, the 
roar, the missiles, and the quivering crust were 
appalling. Explosions broke forth with the 
noise of a thousand guns. The whole moun- 
tain trembled. Sulphurous smoke issued out 
in clouds. Flames of red and blue surged 
against the sloping sides. The molten lava 
heaved up and overflowed, threatening vine- 
yards and villages below. Volleys of stones 
shot up like rockets and came rattling back, 
burning as they fell." 

From the summit of the burning mountain 
he descended to the two ill-fated cities of Her- 
culaneum and Pompeii, and walked through 
their excavated streets. He also visited the 
" City of the Sea," and wandered through the 
palaces of the Doges, crossed the ** Rialto," 
and lingered at the " Bridge of Sighs," over 



yames Bowen Everhart, 1 7 

which the victim of the Council had passed, 
centuries ago, to his doom. He visited Greece 
and its ancient capital — Athens, — where he 
viewed all of its historic sites, as the Acrop- 
olis, the " Groves of Plato," the ancient tem- 
ples, and stood on Mars Hill, where the great 
Apostle preached. Passing from Greece he 
went to Turkey and its curious capital, which 
he described in brilliant language in his *' Mis- 
cellanies." He saw the Sultan Abdul Medjed, 
and the Howling Dervishes, and Turkish wo- 
men with their veils which did not hide their 
" freckled faces." He crossed the Mediter- 
ranean Sea and visited the land of the Ptolo- 
mies, and' sailed upon the Nile, *' the joy of the 
Arab," as far upas the ruins of Thebes. He 
wandered in the Desert, and had sundry semi- 
agreeable adventures with the Bedouins. Leav- 
ing Egypt, he passed into Palestine, and so- 
journed for a short time in the ancient city of 
the kings of Israel, visiting all the noted 
points of interest in and around Jerusalem. 
While there he witnessed the Easter festival, 
which attracts Jew and Christian, Greek and 
Mohammedan. 

In a visit to the Jordan and the Dead Sea, 



1 8 Life and Character of 

he had an unpleasant encounter with some 
Jordan robbers, which he describes in the 
following thrilling language : 

** I employed a sheik and four men, the usual 
guard for the journey to the Jordan and the 
Dead Sea. But the dragoman considering him- 
self and sheik sufficient protection, sent his men 
and the baggage to meet us at Jericho. Well 
mounted we passed eastwardly over desolate 
hills of stone and sand, down ravines, along the 
edge of rocks, and in six or eight hours we 
reached the spacious plain of the Dead Sea. 

** A strange loneliness and gloom prevailed. 
A few bushes were seen, but no birds were 
there, and a single gazelle was the only crea- 
ture that crossed our path. The mountains of 
Moab cast doleful shadows upon the mysteri- 
ous lake. Its heavy waves rolled slowly upon 
the beach, rattled like sheets of metal, or like 
muffled bells, the requiem of the buried cities. 
I bathed in its waters, transparent as glass, 
and which buoyed the body up and burned 
the lips like vitriol. The blasted shores 
seemed strewed with salt and brimstone. The 
atmosphere was impregnated with a bitu- 
minous odor. . . . We halted at a spot on the 



James Bowen Everhart. 1 9 

Jordan, where they say the Saviour was bap- 
tized by John. I was smarting from my 
asphaltic bath, which seemed to have robed 
me in a sheet of fire. I sought along the 
borders of that narrow and tumultuous stream 
for a place to wash in its lucid waters. Disap- 
pointed by the abrupt and crumbling bank, I 
was returning, when some twenty armed Arabs 
came stealing towards us from the bushes. 
For an instant it seemed they might be 
friends ; but their numbers and movements 
showed their hostile purpose. They were as 
wild and picturesque banditti as ever robbed 
or killed. They crouched like beasts of prey, 
or like hunters, or like Indians, with their 
pieces levelled. They advanced behind the 
sheik and dragoman as they were watering the 
horses. I shouted the alarm. My men rushed 
into the stream. Unseen before, I became the 
target of a score of guns ; a bullet whistled 
near. 

" I took shelter behind a fig-tree, whose 
branches reached to the ground. There, 
quite helpless, without even a penknife, stick, 
or stone for defense, suspicious of my guides, 
ignorant of the language and of the country, 



20 Life and Character of 

I had to await the issue. The imagination 
was not inactive. Stories of highwaymen and 
savages, of barbarian slaves and tortured cap- 
tives, passed swiftly through the mind. For a 
time the chance of escape appeared hopeless. 

'' Four Arabs, with guns and knives, prowled 
around the place I left, and within the shadow 
of the tree which sheltered me. Some of 
them stood off on guard to prevent surprise ; 
some searched the saddle-bags ; the others 
secured the horses, dragged the guides out of 
the water, and stript them to their shirts. 
Part of them mounted our beasts ; they all 
went off in triumph and swiftly disappeared. 

*' From necessity we walked over rocks and 
sand for several miles, and entered Jericho, 
very tired and very humble. There my men, 
like David's messengers, were compelled to 
tarry for breeches, though not for beards. 
Having rested and refreshed, I proposed the 
next morning to the Turkish officer in com- 
mand there of ten soldiers, a joint expedition, 
at my expense, against the robbers. He 
laughed at the scheme and said it was impossi- 
ble to find them in the mountains. Then ob- 
serving that I had escaped without the loss of 



yames Bowen Everhart. 2 1 

clothes or money, he added very gravely that 
* Allah had already blessed me.' " 

Among the other cities of Palestine that Mr. 
Everhart visited were those of Bethlehem, 
Bethsaida, Cana, Beer, Tyre. He then re- 
turned to Eurooe, 



CHAPTER IV. 

THERE were yet many other places 
and countries that Mr. Everhart had 
not visited in Europe, and after returning 
from Palestine he went to Vienna, Florence, 
Milan, and Genoa, and then back to Paris. 
After a short visit in the gay capital, he trav- 
ersed France, crossed the Pyrenees and entered 
Spain. He went to Madrid, where he conversed 
with noble cavaliers and beautiful sefioritas, 
delighting in gay costume ; where beggars are 
not called " tramps," and who request alms 
Hke gentlemen, never appearing in public 
without the renowned Spanish cloak and em- 
broidered hat. He made a pilgrimage to the 
Escurial — which is monastery, sepulchre, and 
palace, — wandered through its spacious halls, 
stood on its grand stairways, and descended 
into its gaping vaults, where " precious stones 
flash light from its walls and elaborate urns 
contain the jewelled skulls of kings." 

From Madrid he went into Granada, and 

22 



James Boweii Everhart, 2 



J 



beheld the dark-eyed and olive-skinned Moor, 
who yet cling with reverential love to the cus- 
toms and costumes of the Saracen, though 
converted to Christianity. Back across Spain, 
over the Pyrenees, and through France he 
went to the country of dykes and canals, a 
land redeemed from the sea by its thrifty 
people, whose women, he thought, had the 
most lovely complexions of any that he had 
seen. Of this country and its people Mr. 
Everhart, in his " Miscellanies," says : " There 
are few countries which are more interesting 
than Holland. The Hollander finds water 
wherever he turns — the first object in the 
morning, the last at night. Its vapors float 
over his head, its percolations form the bog at 
his feet. Its prevalence assails all his senses, 
he hears its roar beyond the dykes, he sees it 
around him in currents or in ponds, he smells 
its impurities at all hours. It pervades his 
cities and his meadows." Of the people he 
wrote : 

** Politeness is very general, yet nearly 
every man wears his hat in church, and burns 
his tobacco in the cars and the stations, though 
a notice in four languages forbids smoking. 



24 Life and Character of 

Their customs are curious and permanent. 
As with the ancients, ivy leaves mark a wine- 
shop, and Lucian's lawyer, to allure the clients, 
decked his gate with twigs of palm ; so badges 
are common here. Lace is fastened on the 
door when a child is born and prevents the 
entrance of a bailiff. A bulletin hanging on 
the knocker states the condition of an invalid 
and saves him from intrusion. Men dressed 
in black, with cocked hats, are employed to 
announce a death and attend a funeral. 

** The women are handsome and wholesome 
ruddy with blood and health. They adorn 
their heads with caps and bands of brass or 
gold. They carry with them, wherever they 
go, a small basin of hot coals for their feet. 
They are not, however, entirely devoted to 
display. They hold the plough in the field, 
they haul the boat in the canal, they drag the 
truck to market in the traces with a dog, they 
are sometimes obliged to hire their sweethearts 
for a festival." 

He sailed up the Rhine and passed into 
Switzerland and visited its chief cities. 

Returning to England, he spent several 
weeks in London, and examined all of its 



James Baive7i Ever hart. 25 

places of note. It was while at the Crystal 
Palace he saw the conqueror of the First 
Napoleon, whom he described as ^' an old man 
dressed in a blue light body-coat, with his 
head drooped upon his breast." From Eng- 
land he again went to the land of Bruce and 
the unfortunate Mary, Queen of Scots; 
thence into the wild Welsh country, and over 
the Irish Sea to the Emerald Isle. In the 
latter he visited Kinsale Head, where his 
father was wrecked nealy forty years before. 
He returned home, after three years of travel, 
with a great store of knowledge and information. 



CHAPTER V. 

MR. EVERHART, some years after his 
return from Europe, published a vol- 
ume of his travels entitled " Miscellanies," 
from which several extracts were made in the 
preceding pages. This book was published in 
1862, and was spoken of by newspapers in very 
flattering terms, and in letters received by Mr. 
Everhart from many friends it was highly com- 
mended. The poet N. P. Willis wrote of the 
sketch entitled " Women " in the following lan- 
guage : ** We like to echo the paean to this 
charm of our life (Beauty of Women), and we 
cannot help copying these from some sweet 
thoughts on the subject." The late Horace 
Binney, Sr., the well-known Philadelphia 
lawyer, said : " Pleasure and instruction have 
been derived from it." The late Reverdy 
Johnson wrote : " It gives me pleasure to 
read it." 

It was while Mr. Everhart was at the Har- 
vard Law School that he had an opportunity 

26 



yames Bowen Ever hart, 27 

to hear, on one Independence Day, the great 
jurist, Rufus Choate, deliver an oration at 
Concord, New Hampshire. This event he 
made the initial chapter of his " Miscellanies." 
He thus describes the scene : 

** One sultry Fourth of July, on the famous 
field of Concord, a huge canvas tent shaded ten 
thousand partisans of that gifted leader, who 
was destined, like Moses, to lead his hosts 
to the land he could not reach himself. 

"■ Numerous men of mark sat on an elevated 
platform, eating like other hungry people ; but 
whose organism, unlike theirs, would transmute 
the food, by a sort of alchemy, into thoughts 
which move the world. 

" There was Webster, universally hailed the 
defender of the Constitution — with the fresh 
honor of diplomatic triumph on his massy 
brows — with the consciousness of matchless 
eloquence upon his scornful lips — coming, as it 
were, like another Achilles, to cast dismay 
upon the foe by his majestic presence. 

"There were the benevolent features and 
bald head of Abbott Lawrence — the great 
merchant, and the fine gentleman — represent- 
ing the aristocracy of commerce, the American 



28 Life and Character of 

patronage of learning, and the princely hospi- 
tality of Boston. 

"There was Horace Greeley, with hair and 
clothes as light as his complexion ; whose 
plain demeanor, homely gestures, and drawl- 
ing elocution marred the vast formation and 
vigorous style of the editorial tribune. 

'* There was another person whom I did not 
know. He had a sad, thoughtful face, half 
poetical, half philosophical, such as you see in 
the pictures of Lamartine. He was nervous. 
He ate but little. He pushed his fingers 
through his raven curls. His dreamy oriental 
eyes glanced from earth to heaven. Light and 
shade flitted alternately across his brow. He 
moved about on his seat. He seemed excited 
with deep feeling. So you might suppose the 
priestess appeared when about to utter the 
oracle ; or the prophet on the point of pro- 
claiming the vision. 

''The Chairman, Mr. Hoar, addressed him : 
* I trust our senatorial friend will allow us to 
ask him, ** Watchman, what of the night ? *' * 

** Tumultuous applause greeted the unknown 
figure, with cheers for Choate as he rose to 
answer. 



yaines Bowen Everhart. 29 

*' A tall man, he lifted himself up to his full 
height ; pale and trembling with emotion, he 
stretched forth his arm. Amidst a silence like 
night, with a look radiant of genius, and in a 
voice eloquent as an angel's, he exclaimed : 
* The morning cometh ! Thank God ! the 
morning cometh ! * An exordium, so prompt 
and happy, thrilled the innumerable crowd 
like magic. Subdued murmurs of delight es- 
caped them, and compelled him to pause. As 
he proceeded he seemed to sway them by a 
sort of fascination ; they hung with parted lips 
upon his accents, captive to every thought he 
uttered. Such brilliant power, such genial 
sensibility, dazzled the imagination, warmed 
the blood, filled the soul. His wit, his pathos, 
his sarcasm, his imagery, were all effective. 
You could read the deep indignation on all 
faces when he referred to the Texas land- 
jobbers speculating in war. Men shook with 
laughter when, in an irresistible manner, he 
spoke of Mr. Polk's name not having been 
written between Orion and the Pleiades, and 
the perplexity of his friends in proving his 
opinions by witnesses and afifidavits. They 
listened with breathless admiration, when he 



30 Life a7id Character of 

alluded to the fitness of the assembly then and 
there ; and recalled the first fierce struggle and j 

the generous bloodshed of those heroic mar- 
tyrs, whom the angels in chariots of fire led on 
to victory and to heaven. And few were un- 
moved when, turning from the past and the 
dead, he pointed to the Revolutionary veterans 
near him, covered with the honored marks of 
war and time, ready to renew their patriotic 
vows, and consecrate their closing days, as they 
had their best, on the altar of their country. 

*' In conclusion he referred in complimentary 
terms to Greeley for his advocacy of a protec- 
tive tariff, and said of it, that it is a principle 
native to the soil, and as essential as the 
ballot. That labor is the true foundation of 
liberty — that it must forge the national 
weapons and weave the national colors. 
That while liberty sheds its hallowed light 
over our institutions, labor lends its sturdy 
arm for their support in peace, and for their 
defence in war. 

" He ceased — but the effect of his oratory 
was permanent. No one could forget his im- 
pressive emphasis, which varied through all 
the notes of tuneful sounds — his pictorial 



Ja^nes Bowefi Everhart. 3 1 

words, which seemed to make thought sensible 
to sight — his impassioned logic, which glowed 
through his periods with the energy of fire. 

" Sometimes he spoke with such insinuating 
force that you might suppose of him as of 
Pericles, that the goddess of persuasion dwelt 
upon his lips. And sometimes he displayed 
as much vehemence as if the furies had roused 
him to ecstasy. 

** Occasionally his speech had the delicious 
sweetness of some one gentle instrument of 
music. And occasionally, it had the swelling 
grandeur and crashing thunders of the 
orchestra." 

In 1867 Mr. Everhart, who had a cheerful 
and poetical turn of mind, published a volume 
of poems, which he dedicated to his father. 
They are real gems. One of the most beauti- 
ful and pathetic is a loving tribute to his 
deceased mother, which is quoted entire : 

SHE IS NOT THERE. 

I glanced outside the dwelling-house, 
And o'er the bright parterre ; 

The flowers are gayly blooming, 
And scent the summer air; 



32 Life and Character of 

The alleys lined with evergreen, 
Are trimmed with tasteful care ; 

The birds are singing that she loved — 
She is not there, not there. 

I gazed about the doorway sill, 

On the bronzed, old, iron chair ; 
The pine-tree waves its shadows cool, 

That used to fan her hair ; 
The beggar *s waiting at the gate, 

Who blessed her with his prayer; 
The neighbors pass she used to greet- 

She is not there, not there. 

I enter in the spacious hall, 
With quick, unconscious air ; 

I look around the parlor seats, 
I seek the open stair ; 

I listen for a voice or step — 
She is not there, not there. 

The carriage drives within the yard ; 

The dogs bound from their lair ; 
And one by one the seats are left, 

That she was wont to share ; 
I mark them as they pass me by — 

She is not there, not there. 



yames Bowen Everhart, ^^Ti 

I sit me at the family board, 

Beside her constant chair ; 
I seem to cull the parts she chose 

To make her evening fare ; 
I turn around to meet her smile — 

She is not there, not there. 

I bring some favored genial book, 

Some lay or ballad rare ; 
I rest near where she often bent 

To catch the quaint old air; 
No gentle signs respond to me — 

She is not there, not there. 

Familiar scenes are beaming still. 

Old haunts attractions bear ; 
Warm hands their kindly pressure give ; 

Fond looks their welcome wear; 
And yet the broken circle shows — 

She is not there, not there. 

Those features in the pendent frame 

Her outward charms declare; 
Yet shall my breast an image keep, 

Far dearer and more fair. 
Of tenderness, and truth, and love 

And faith above despair. 



34 Life and Character of 

Until the heart's dead pulses shows — 
She is not there, not there. 

Mr. Everhart was a close and careful reader 
of the Bible, and produced a number of beau- 
tiful verses from passages of Scripture. One 
of the most charitable and generous is : 

"THE ENTERTAINMENT AT SIMON'S HOUSE." 

— Luke vii. 36-50. 

Midst those who had taken their places, 

To sup at the Pharisee's board. 
There entered a woman, with ointment. 

Who stooped at the couch of the Lord. 
Her tresses hung loose o'er her shoulders, 

And her eyes were cast to the floor ; 
She seemed an unwelcome intruder, 

Desolate, degraded, and poor. 

Her tears bathed the feet of the Master, 

She wiped them with folds of her hair, 
Bedewed them with kisses and ointment. 

And silently worshipped Him there. 
The host, as a bigot, regarded 

Her beautiful deed with disdain. 
And deemed, if his guest were a Prophet, 

He 'd know that her touch was a stain. 



James Bowen Ever hart, 35 

The Lord in His wisdom, divining 

What passed in the Pharisee's heart, 
Declared how his faith is deficient 

Who yields of his love but a part. 
For Simon but formally tendered 

The debt that to strangers he owed, 
Denying the tribute of homage 

The woman so fondly bestowed. 

Though many her sins, He forgave her : 

Then, marveled the guests at the board ; 
** Who 's this, that he pardons transgression ?" — 

The woman alone knew the Lord. 
Their cavils He checked by repeating 

Salvation again in her ears. 
Who 'd shown her belief and devotion 

By lowliness, sorrow, and tears. 

The poems of Mr. Everhart were largely of 
scenes and events in Chester county, and 
many of them were of a domestic character. 
Others were patriotic, and still others of his- 
torical rhyme. 

The poetry of Mr. Everhart was not confined 
to the solemn and pathetic, but there were 
many verses which had a dash of heroic and 
martial, as in the following : 



36 Life and Character of 

THE FLAG. 

*' By yon cluster, with starry lustre, 

The regiments muster along the line — 
And onward moving, devoted proving, 
Their heart a-loving around it twine. 

** Mark! how they eye it! as if the fiat 
Of holy Diet had made them swear 
Before the altar, on law and psalter, 
They 'd never falter beneath its glare. 

*' Now, high, advancing, oh ! see it glancing! 
Oh ! sight entrancing ! they charge the foe ! 
Shoulder to shoulder, the men grow bolder. 
Shielding its holder from overthrow ! 

** But, hear the clashing of squadrons dashing. 
Amidst the crashing of iron and lead ! 
Oh ! scene appalling ! behold them falling ! 
The wounded crawling among the dead ! 

** That banner flaring, with colors bearing 
A charm to daring, the day has saved : — 
And they *11 discover, when strife is over, 
The thickest clover blooms where it waved. 

*' Still 'neath its blazon, the diapason 

Of gun and caisson for Freedom rolls — 



yames Bowen Ever hart, 37 

And still shall Glory, through ages hoary, 
In art and story embalm its folds." 

The poems were followed in 1875 by an- 
other single poem entitled *' The Fox 
Chase," and was dedicated to the late Hon. 
John Hickman, who for several years repre- 
sented Chester county in the national Con- 
gress. Mr. Gerritt Smith, in commenting 
upon this poem, said : " I am not familiar with 
the sport, but I am capable of seeing that 
there is true poetry in the description." The 
late Hon. John W. Forney wrote : " This 
short but spirited poem conveys a better idea 
of the ' noble sport ' than the celebrated blank- 
verse quarto called the * Chase,' which ap- 
peared in 1735. The character of the poetry is 
high ; some passages exhibit no small skill in 
word-painting. The action is at a rapid pace, 
and very accurate." The scene is laid in 
Chester county, on the Brandywine battle- 
ground, up the stream, over its hills, and 
through its valleys. 

In 1888, early in the year, Mr. Everhart pub- 
lished his last work, entitled '' Speeches," which 
he dedicated to Rev. John T. Duffield, D.D., of 



38 y antes Bowen Ever hart, 

the College of New Jersey ; it is a collection of 
his public orations, chiefly upon questions that 
came before the Senate of Pennsylvania and the 
Congress of the United States while he was a 
member of those bodies. They are, however, 
interspersed with some speeches of a local char- 
acter. The press of not only Pennsylvania but 
of other States have spoken in the highest 
terms of this, his last contribution to literature. 



CHAPTER VI. 

MR. EVERHART was a patriot, but one 
who never made a display of his patri- 
otism. His love of country was deep-seated, 
and his extended travels in foreign lands rather 
increased than stunted his admiration for 
American institutions. The unassumed gran- 
deur of the greatest Republic the world ever 
produced was in no way dimmed by the jew- 
elled crowns and titled paupers of European 
monarchies. His patriotism was of the prac- 
tical kind ; it was courageous ; it did not halt 
when the call came for men to go forth and 
bare their breasts to the bullet and steel. 

In 1862 he raised a company known as 
" Co. B " Tenth Regiment of Pennsylvania 
State Militia, under a call from Governor An- 
drew G. Curtin. The colonel of the regiment 
was R. Maris Frame, of West Chester. At the 
time the call was made it was generally thought 
that General Lee would not halt upon the 
Maryland and Pennsylvania border, but would 

39 



40 Life and Character of 

invade the latter State. The Tenth Regiment 
was ordered to Hagerstown, Maryland, with 
some other companies of State regiments. At 
the time of their arrival at Hagerstown the 
battle of Antietam was in progress ; the smoke 
of the conflict was visible and the guns could 
be heard distinctly. Colonel Frame being 
called upon to join General McClellan's left 
wing, convened a council of the regimental 
captains for the purpose of taking a vote as to 
whether they would march to Antietam. Cap- 
tain Everhart said in the conference : " It is a 
disgrace to parley, and the men must march." 
He returned from the conference to his com- 
mand and immediately formed the men in 
line, and in stirring language told them of 
their duty, and said : " If there are any who 
are afraid to go to battle let that man step 
from the ranks now. I want no cowards with 
me." The men without an exception stood by 
their captain, and, with a cheer, expressed 
themselves ready to go into the engagement. 
Very many privates from other companies, and 
some ofificers also, signified their willingness to 
be led to the front under his leadership. Just 
as preparations were being made to obey the 



yames Boweii Ever hart, 41 

order to move forward, an officer from McClel- 
lan's staff arrived and countermanded the 
order. The danger was over. Lee had begun 
to retreat. The emergency was passed and 
the regiment was marched back to Harris- 
burg, and on September 26, 1862, it was 
mustered out of service. 

Again, when Lee invaded Pennsylvania, in 
1863, another call was made for emergency 
men by the Governor. Among the regiments 
raised was the Twenty-ninth, on June 19th, by 
Col. J. W. Hawley. Many of the men of the 
year previous responded, among whom was 
Captain Everhart, who was chosen major of 
the regiment. The companies of the Twenty- 
ninth were scattered along the line of the 
Pennsylvania Railroad, and to the south of 
that road. Major Everhart, with two com- 
panies, occupied an entrenched camp at the 
extreme end of Morris Cove, not far from 
Bedford, Pennsylvania. Some scouting Con- 
federate horsemen hovered around occasion- 
ally, and a few stragglers were captured. After 
the battle of Gettysburg the regiment was en- 
camped for a few weeks at Loudon, and was 
constantly under arms, and had a brush with 



4-2 James Bowen Ever hart, 

the enemy on one or two occasions. The 
second cause for the call of emergency men 
having terminated with the defeat of Lee and 
his retreat, the regiment returned to Harris- 
burg and were mustered out of service on Au- 
gust 1st, having been in service two and a half 
months. 

Soon after returning home. Major Everhart 
applied to a Congressman, asking that Secre- 
tary of War, Stanton, authorize him to raise a 
regiment of picked men. The application to 
the War Department was, however, unsuccess- 
ful. In 1864, on the report of the attempt on 
the National Capital, Major Everhart recruited 
a company, but his labor was brought to an 
end by the retreat of the enemy. He was a 
member of Gen. George A. McCall Post 31, 
Grand Army of the Republic, and all through 
his life, since its organization, was a generous 
contributor to the Post. 



CHAPTER VII. 

m 

IN the year 1876, at the solicitation of his 
friends, Mr. Everhart became the Repub- 
lican candidate for State Senator to represent 
Chester county — the Nineteenth Senatorial 
District of Pennsylvania, At the general elec- 
tion his Democratic opponent was G. B. 
Sharp, the vote being, Mr. Everhart 9,705, and 
Mr. Sharp 6,598. In 1880 he was unanimously 
renominated in the Republican convention, and 
at the general election the vote was: Mr. Ever- 
hart 11,229; Dr. F. W. Heckel, Democrat, 
7,519; Alvan Williams, National, 221. His 
term was for four years, but in 1882, when it 
was hardly half completed, he was nominated 
and elected to represent the Sixth Congres- 
sional District, composed of Chester and Dela- 
ware counties, in the House of Representatives. 
As a State Senator Mr. Everhart was care- 
ful and painstaking. In the excitement of the 
Hayes-Tilden presidential contest he pre- 
vented in the Senate the introduction of a 

43 



44 Life and Character of 

resolution expressly affirming the right of 
the Vice-President to decide the election of 
Mr. Hayes as President by giving him the 
electoral vote. He also opposed the move- 
ment, advised by men at Washington, to ap- 
propriate a million of dollars to arm the State 
for the purpose of seeing the electoral vote 
counted. Such procedure, he argued, was un- 
constitutional. He offered, on January 23, 
1877, 3. resolution approving of an Electoral 
Commission, which a few days afterward was 
adopted by a similar resolution in Congress. 
Mr. Everhart was the only Republican in the 
State Senate who voted for the resolution. 
The next day, with two other Republicans, he 
supported a similar resolution offered by a 
Democratic Senator. During his five years in 
the Senate Mr. Everhart perhaps prevented 
much special legislation by constitutional ob- 
jections. He constantly opposed severe penal- 
ties, and particularly imprisonment for venal 
offences, as calculated to degrade and not to 
reform, or likely to make the law a dead letter. 
He made several speeches on extending the 
jurisdiction of the justices of the peace to 
trial juries ; on allowing criminals to testify in 



yavtes Bowen Everhm^t. 45 

behalf of themselves if they so desired. He 
spoke in favor of paying the officers and sol- 
diers of the National Guard who went to Pitts- 
burg to suppress the riots of 1877. Mr. 
Everhart also made able speeches on the reso- 
lution to print a report of the great waterways 
of Pennsylvania ; on the Geodetic Survey of 
the State ; on resolutions concerning the 
deaths of Senators and on the deaths of ex- 
Governor Bigler and the late Hon. Bayard 
Taylor, Minister to Germany. This latter ad- 
dress was printed by order of the Senate in 
pamphlet form. On that occasion Mr. Ever- 
hart said : 

" Mr. President — In presenting these reso- 
lutions it may not be improper for me to 
add that Mr. Taylor was one of my con- 
stituents. I knew him very well, and for 
many years. He was born in Kennett Square. 
Chester county, about a half century ago, near 
one of the most important battle-fields of the 
Revolutionary war — 

Where beautifully flows the Brandywine, 
On and forever from dawn to decline — 
Under bridges and arches of trees, 



46 Life and Character of 

Gilding the landscape and cooling the breeze, 
Parting the pastures and swelling their stores, 
Flowering, perfuming the sinuous shores, 
Glassing the squirrel disporting above, 
Sweetening the tanager's carol of love — 
With dreamers in quest of the Muses' shrine. 
In the haunted dells of the Brandywine. 

There, in a pleasant district, in the midst of 
cultivated people, his blameless and ambitious 
boyhood forecast the meritorious man. With a 
high purpose, correct principles, and exceptional 
gifts, he passed all the straits of life untainted 
and unharmed. His industry seemed like an 
impulsive instinct or an obligation of con- 
science. It was not spasmodic or erratic, or 
aimless or misdirected, but discriminating and 
constant. It was more serviceable than friends 
or funds, and insured them both. It made 
him prompt to seize occasions and meet 
emergencies. It exceeded his necessities, and 
increased with his success. It made his 
volumes valuable, and outnumbered his ma- 
tured years. He was fond of art — the de- 
licious trophies of the chisel and the pencil, 
which multiply and perpetuate the changing 



y antes Bowen Ever hart, 47 

phase of beauty, and decorate the porches and 
temples, the Valhallas and Vaticans, with the 
immortal counterfeits of nature. But he was 
no less a devotee of books, those stores of 
quaint and current learning, those sweet 
friends of scholars, those arsenals of genius, 
those silent oracles of thought, which mould 
the character of persons, states, and eras. 
He cultivated language, which opened new 
sources of intelligence and new fields for 
energy. His efficient rendering of Faust 
shows his thoroughness in German, while his 
facility in divers tongues amazed those who 
heard him in their native speech, as in some 
sort they were amazed who heard the Apostles 
on the day of Pentecost. He travelled and 
girdled the globe with his journeys. He 
viewed nearly ' all places that the eye of 
heaven visits,' regions grim with perpetual 
rock, or ice, or sea, or sand ; or attractive with 
arable areas, or a wilderness of floral bloom, 
or forest shade ; nature in all her contrasts of 
motion, forms, and colors, growth and waste ; 
and her phenomena from the arctic twilight 
to the torrid noon, through all the seasons and 
through all the zones. He passed over the mid- 



48 Life and Character of 

die, tideless sea, bordered with continents and 
gemmed with islands, amidst once worshipped 
elements and glorious cities and storied coasts, 
— by altars of love, and fountains of song, and 
monuments of genius, and cradles of religion 
from Jupiter to Jesus ; over the solemn, glowing 
waste, where Hagar's seed still camp beneath 
their camel-skins and wave their hostile hand, 
and where the Howadjis on their pilgrimage 
carol, as they plod their dreary way, the holy 
verses of the Koran or the Kaaba ; along the 
alluvial shores where the lotos blooms and the 
Apis reigned, where every temple was like a city 
and every city like an empire, and whose won- 
drous ruins still seem to echo the vaunt of Osy- 
symandias, * I am king of kings, and who would 
exceed my fame, let him surpass my works ' ; 
over the strange and fable-ridden region of the 
farthest East, with its white elephants and 
pagodas, and its pomp of silken fleece and 
jewel craft ; amidst the swarming multitudes 
and unvarying customs of the flowery realm of 
old Cathay ; through those curious mediaeval 
towns, with their grand cathedral towers, 
where the old masters carved and painted, 
and the great composers swelled the litanies 



yames Bowen EverharL 49 

with their incomparable music ; over the vine- 
clad slopes of Granada, rife with the reminis- 
cences and relics of Moorish chivalry and 
taste ; along the glittering gulches of the 
Pacific sierras ; among the snow-clad hills of 
the polar north, where they sang of Thor and 
Oden, and where Viking unfurled their icy 
sails for voyages of booty and adventure. 

" And thus his productions allure the imagin- 
ation after his wandering steps as if fragrant, 
like those of Venus, who left behind her a trail 
of flowers. And then how easily he leads us, 
as it were, through the ivory gate of dreams, 
into the ideal land, into the world of airy 
forms, through galleries of grace and vistas of 
delight, amidst vivid pictures and obvious pas- 
sions, instructive fancies and attractive shows 
— all harmonious as reality. 

** What facility, tenderness, and sweetness, 
what spirit and fitness, what splendor and 
wisdom in his verse! His Muse may not 
indeed, with exulting strength, soar upward 
with the mightier bards, to the ' highest heaven 
of invention,' but sweeping along with easy 
wing and inspiring breath, over various-featured 
nature, she transmutes the voiceless landscape 



50 Life and Character of 

and the latent thought into imperishable song. 
How exquisite his idyls of the field ! How en- 
kindling his heroic strains ! What melting 
pity in his tones of grief ! What rhythmic 
grandeur rolls along his lines ! 

** And what vigor, clearness, and simplicity in 
his prose ! Nothing superfluous or incongru- 
ous or insipid, not weakened by cant, or 
blurred by vice, or wasted on subtleties, but 
rich in matter as the waters abound in pearls. 

" Thus his labors, by their scope and finish, by 
their diversity, tone, and freshness, have won 
unusual favor. They have supplied the place 
of reckless public publications, and fostered 
a worthier taste ; they have inspired senti- 
ments of toleration, faith in energy, free- 
dom in thought, hope in progress ; they 
have been an unfailing source of edification 
and entertainment ; they have solaced many 
weary hours, and idle lives, and restless spirits ; 
they have given an example to the adventu- 
rous, and a model to the studious; they have 
discussed many topics, the association of scen- 
ery, aesthetic charms, the moral of events, the 
mystery of the affections, the philosophy of mo- 
tives, the fashions of race, the civilization epochs. 



yames Bowen EverharL 5 1 

" His labors, familar to two continents and to 
many languages, tinged by his own personality, 
are recommended by it. 

** He was a gentleman in heart and bearing ; 
a genius without proverbial eccentricities or 
contrasts ; learned without pedantry ; flattered, 
without egotism ; appreciative, catholic, and 
generous in his views ; close as a brother in 
his attachments ; just as an arbiter in his criti- 
cisms ; grateful, but not resentful ; persistent 
against difficulties, but not obstinate in error; 
aspiring to distinction, but not vain of suc- 
cess ; betraying no ^WYy^ and exciting none. 
With teeming recollections and honest courte- 
sies, trusting, reciprocal, congenial, his very 
presence was an inspiration. The friend of 
Freiligrath, Humboldt, and Thackeray ; whom 
Whittier * so loved ' ; whom Longfellow com- 
pared to his own ideal prince ; whom Powers 
spoke of as * almost an angel ' ; whom the 
nation honored with high responsibility and 
trust. 

" But, alas ! the ovations which greeted his 
distinction were but the heralds of his obse- 
quies. His civic laurels have become his 
burial wreath, and admiration is emphasized 



5 2 Life and Character of 

with sorrow. Few dead have had such mourn- 
ers. People and poets, philosophers and kings 
have contributed their tears. And yet no fav- 
ored birth or fortune blessed his opportunities 
or aided his condition. Not his, the glamour 
of abounding wealth displayed in charities or 
taste. Not his, the eclat won by the soldier's 
peril in the stress of battle. Not his, the im- 
pulsive approbation of the crowd, moved by 
flattered vanity or pride. 

" None of these things formed his fame, or 
magnify his loss. They rest upon other causes. 
It is the absence of that unwearied spirit which 
shed its intellectual stores profusely as the Ori- 
ental chief his diamonds. It is the silence of 
those golden strings which, like David's, might 
calm the troubled passions with their melody. 
It is the unawakening trance of those precious 
properties which imbued his manhood with 
fascinations. It is his works and worth and 
fatal zeal which claim our gratitude and grief, 
and will embalm his memory in the human 
heart forever." 

This tribute to the memory of Mr. Taylor 
was pronounced by many of the Senators to 



yames Bow en Ever hart, 53 

be the finest memorial ever delivered in the 
Senate of Pennsylvania. The leading news- 
papers of the State spoke of it in the highest 
terms. The Philadelphia Times said : *' It is 
conceded to be one of the finest half-hour ad- 
dresses ever heard in the Senate." The Har- 
risburg Telegraph said : '' It was the gem of the 
season " ; and th.Q Pittsburg Dispatch wrote : *' It 
was an eloquent and fitting tribute." 

Mr. Everhart was preeminently fitted to 
deliver the eulogium upon the dead minister, 
poet, and author. He knew him so well ; he 
had travelled in so many of the same coun- 
tries. Their poetical souls were in accord ; 
their love of nature so harmonizing ; their 
admiration of the heroic so exalted ; their 
veneration for ancient cities and sites so 
worshipful. 




CHAPTER VIII. 

HEN in the Senate of Pennsylvania in 
1879, on the occasion of the substitu- 
tion of General Anthony Wayne's name in the 
bill making an appropriation for the statues of 
distinguished Pennsylvanians to be placed in 
the National Capitol, Mr. Everhart spoke on 
the bill and his amendment in favor of General 
Wayne as follows : 

** Mr. Chairman : — I offer this amendment 
with some reluctance, but, nevertheless, under 
a sense of justice. It is not intended to show 
any disrespect for the Commisson. They are 
gentlemen of distinction, of acknowledged in- 
telligence and liberality of views. They have 
done their duty sincerely, but in this matter it 
is generally conceded that they have made a 
mistake. Public opinion has not confirmed 
their selection. They are directed by the law 
to report annual progress. They did not re- 
port their selection, the most important step 
in their progress, although made last April 

';4 



yames Bowen Ever hart. 55 

when we were in session. They only reported 
this session, after they made the contract. It 
would have been courteous, and a proper com- 
pliance w^ith the law, if they had deferred to 
those for whom they acted. It would have 
caused no particular delay, because they only 
made that contract three weeks before this ses- 
sion commenced. But they will say, perhaps, 
that, the contract being made, it is too late 
for us to interfere, though it is the only oppor- 
tunity we have had ; too late to do any thing 
but pay the money. I think that is an error. 
This contract, like all others, was made in ac- 
cordance with existing law, and that law re- 
quires them to report progress ; and to report 
progress means that the legislature reserves 
the right to approve or condemn that progress. 
All the parties, therefore, the Artist and Com- 
mission, knew beforehand that this contract 
was subject to the direction of the legislature. 
It requires this appropriation from us in order 
to carry the contract out. 

" They were to report progress, not merely 
for information, for that would be superfluous, 
but to report as auditors, committees, and 
agents report, for the judgment of those 



56 Life and Character of 

whom they represent. Their action is con- 
tingent, interlocutory, and incomplete without 
ours. They could not make it final, because 
their powers are not absolute and independent, 
but derivative and subject to our supervision 
and control. They could not select, against 
our will, a man of renown, a native of the 
State, like John C. Calhoun, although, accord- 
ing to them, within the literal term of the 
Commission. This possible consequence is 
provided against by their qualified powers. 
Their duty was preparation, examination, and 
selection — but that was not to be irrevocable 
or irreversible. They were chosen for their fit- 
ness, to be sure, but they were not deemed ir- 
responsible or infallible. And their labors, no 
odds how arduous or devoted, no odds what 
praise they command, or what consideration 
they deserve, are not to be regarded as sacred 
or successful. It cannot be said, because they 
did not seek this duty, because it was beset 
with importunities and perplexities, because it 
has consumed time, patience, and study, that 
therefore their work is beyond the reach of 
improvement or of change. Besides, this modi- 
fication, if adopted, would not materially in- 



y antes Bowen Ever hart. 57 

terfere with the contract. Should it, at this 
stage, require a difference of pose or expres- 
sion, a slight compensation to the Artist would 
enable the Commission to comply with the 
legislative authority. 

" It is, therefore, the proper time to question 
the selections that have been made, and to rec- 
tify the error if there be one. 

*' They were authorized to have two statues 
executed for the Rotunda at Washington, of 
persons illustrious for historic renown or divS- 
tinguished Revolutionary services, previous to 
or during that war. They selected Robert 
Fulton for his historic renown, and Peter 
Muhlenberg for distinguished Revolutionary 
services. Both of these gentlemen, though 
natives, acquired their distinction and renown, 
not in the State, but respectively in Virginia 
and New York. But leaving that for the pres- 
ent, ought not each of these examples to 
be the most praiseworthy that the Common- 
wealth has produced? 

" Does Peter Muhlenberg's preeminence as a 
Pennsylvanian, in that contest, stand patent 
and express beyond cavil? Does he over- 
shadow all of his cotemporaries ? He was a 



58 Life and Character of 

clergyman, a soldier, and a politician. He 
served his country well. He was wise, just, 
brave, and patriotic. But he was not so emi- 
nent in civil life as Penn, Franklin, Morris, 
Rittenhouse, or Rush ; and while I would not 
disparage him, never until this occasion has 
his military character been preferred to 
Wayne's. Although in many of the same 
engagements, he never emerged from them 
with a renown like this. Is it answered that 
his command was less ? So then was his risk, 
and so should be his recognition. Is it said 
that his opportunities were small ? That 
would be an obstacle to his distinction, not a 
reason for it. Is it said that his merits were 
not acknowledged ? That calls in question the 
justice of Washington and the adjudication of 
history. 

" But all these suggestions imply the superior 
reputation of Wayne. He was especially the 
Pennsylvanian soldier of the Revolution. 
Born on her soil, trained in her schools, we see 
him the trusted agent of Franklin ; a member 
of the Provincial Assembly ; a deputy to the 
Pennsylvania Convention ; one of the Commit- 
tee of Public Safety ; raising a regiment for 



yames Bowen Everhart, 59 

the army ; invading Canada, and by the for- 
tune of war suddenly in command of a de- 
feated force ; conducting the retreat with 
safety to Ticonderoga ; promoted and com- 
mended for his ability ; skirmishing with suc- 
cess about the heights of Middletown ; resist- 
ing like a wall Knyphausen's advance at 
Brandywine till sunset ; renewing the action 
with ardor at Goshen ; blazing like a fire 
through the fog and gloom of Germantown ; 
collecting clothing for the half-naked troops 
while on a leave of absence ; foraging in Jer- 
sey to sustain the camp at Valley Forge ; 
bursting like an avalanche through the British 
lines at Monmouth ; scaling the terrific steeps 
of Stony Point ; quelling a mutiny of unpaid 
troops by his prudence ; assaulting Cornwallis, 
five times stronger than himself, with advan- 
tage, at Green Springs ; defeating the British 
and Indians at Ogeechee ; storming the re- 
doubts at Yorktown ; repulsing the savages 
and Tories at Sharon ; entering Savannah and 
Charleston in triumph ; closing the war by 
receiving the allegiance of the disaffected, and 
new titles for his service. 

"Then, in the General Assembly he was the 



6o Life and Character of 

first to oppose the test laws, and the most 
influential in their repeal. He was amongst 
the foremost in advocating comprehensive in- 
land navigation, and the union of the Delaware 
and Chesapeake bays. He received a deserved 
gratuity of land from Georgia ; was elected to 
Congress ; made a member of the United States 
Constitutional Convention ; appointed chief of 
the army. Again in the field, he subdued the 
Indians, whose previous massacre of citizens 
and soldiers had filled the wide West with woe 
and terror. He returned to the seat of gov- 
ernment, and was awarded a welcome which 
recalls the enthusiasm of Rome's historic tri- 
umphs. And after half a lifetime of public 
labors, died on duty. 

" Such was Wayne. A man of neighborhood 
influence, and household virtues, and an absorb- 
ing love of country ; a soldier by descent and 
genius, an oracle of discipline, a paragon of 
valor. Rigorous like Frederick, beloved like Na- 
poleon, with the dash of Murat, and the steadi- 
ness of McDonald ; pursuing with the zeal of 
Blucher, retreating with the care of Xenophon ; 
generous in victory, self-relying in distress, — 
he had all the elements of a great captain. 



yames Bowen Everhart, 6i 

**He seemed to have the ability to discern, 
to combine, and distribute, to anticipate and 
execute; to avail himself of error, assistance, 
locality, or time; to inspire his force with fury, 
and his enemies with panic ; to diminish the 
hostile advantage of position ; to compensate 
for the inferiority of equipment or experience ; 
to make the most of success, and suffer the 
least from reverses. And in the very ecstasy 
of strife, when thoughts leap through centu- 
ries, and minutes compass the destinies of 
people, and principles and politics wait upon 
the winged words of command, — decided and 
discreet, he seemed to grasp all clues, all haz- 
ards, all cares, all possibilities of victory and 
defeat. In trying predicaments, when weak 
minds are alarmed and strong ones doubt ; 
when it is fatal to err, and perilous to change, 
— then rising with its necessity, he seemed able 
to modify, postpone, or precipitate the crisis. 

''Thus was he amongst the first, the truest, 
the wisest, the most illustrious of his time; 
the hero of many fields, laurelled with many 
trophies, a ' soldier fit to stand by Caesar and 
give direction.' His deeds have passed the 
crucible of criticism. They were not in a cor- 



62 Life and Character of 

ner, nor forgotten in a day; nor were they 
commonplace, nor shared always with others ; 
but done in person, or by his especial instance 
or order. 

" What better or equal claims has any other 
to a guerdon such as this ? What merits 
should he have shown to have made him 
worthy of this statue ? Is it patriotism — that 
noble feeling which, next to Christian faith, 
seems the purest of human virtues, which 
founds, fosters, defends, and beautifies the 
State? Mark his course, from his prime till 
death, giving the most zealous, prudent, and 
unselfish devotion of energy and talent to the 
public cause, through all its troubles, to the 
last. Is it generalship — that peculiar skill 
which trains and marshals men in masses for 
the red field of war? Here is disposition, ap- 
proach, attack, retreat, repulse, pursuit ; all 
with such ingenious method and fair results, 
as satisfied the requirements of the military 
art. Is it courage — that steadfast quality, 
which gazes with unblenched eye upon the 
king of terrors ? Here it is, so exalted and 
intense, that it seemed a madness, became a 
proverb, reads like romance, recalls the days 



y antes Bow en Ever hart. 63 

of chivalry, the feats of Paynim and Paladin; 
which sets itself against vast odds of numbers, 
drill, and metal, and was ready, as was said 
and seemed, to charge into the very mouth of 
hell. Is it civic worth — that which in uncer- 
tain times settles rules of action and guides the 
common thought towards contingent wants 
and distant benefits? Observe his provident 
measures, his preparation of supplies and men 
for the forcible assertion of the common weal ; 
and his legislative wisdom, looking far ahead 
of * the ignorant present' to the needs of 
future wealth and commerce. Is it private 
character — that which gives to society its 
dearest decencies and graces ? Here is a 
citizen without reproach, whose life was an 
example of probity and honor. 

" All of these things are abundantly estab- 
lished : By history, written at different periods 
and in different places. By divers pens of 
eminent friends, of foreigners and natives. By 
tradition handed down through various fami- 
lies, associated with personal incident and 
local scenes and battle relics; and interwoven 
with the literature, the song and music of the 
land, from then till now. By the confidence 



64 Life and Character of 

of Franklin, who esteemed him in the very- 
morning of his career, chose him to represent 
a distant important colonization scheme, and 
was afterwards joined with him in the Com- 
mittee of Public Safety. By the constant 
friendship of Washington, who for nearly a 
score of years had him by his side or beneath 
his eye, or under his command, in bivouac and 
battle, in the darkest seasons and the bitterest 
trials; who relied on him as ^neas on Acha- 
tes ; who charged him with momentous duties ; 
who commended him in public orders; who 
honored him with chief command of the 
national army. By the repeated thanks of 
Congress, engrossed on record and published 
to the country and the world. By the ever- 
welcome voice of chivalrous Lafayette, speak- 
ing his praise from the shores of beautiful 
France. By the words of General Lee, deemed 
the wisest military critic of the day, pronoun- 
cing one of his exploits unparalleled in the past. 
By the united approbation of Greene and St. 
Clair, of Gates and Schuyler, the chief gen- 
erals in the field ; of Rush, the eminent civilian ; 
and of Morris, the great financier. By the 
voluntary applause of the people of contempo- 
raneous and current times. 



yamcs Bow en Ever hart, 65 

** But this bill seems an effort to overturn this 
mountain of evidence, to reverse the verdict 
of generations, and remove the settled land- 
marks of history. It seems intended as an 
arbitrary decree to fix a posthumous prece- 
dence, to confound our patriotic associations, 
disparage the object of our affections, and rob 
us of our knightliest hero. And for what? To 
substitute another whose deeds are not so 
conspicuous, whose character is not so popu- 
lar, whose name is not so familiar, and who 
was eminent chiefly as a citizen of Virginia. 
For there he had his home before and during 
the Revolution. There he debated and voted 
in the House of Burgesses. There he preached 
the Gospel, there he left the pulpit for the 
field, and there he attained all his military 
titles. He is therefore beyond the purview of 
the law ; for he was distinguished, not as a 
Pennsylvanian, but as a Virginian soldier. 

** But, Mr. President, the attempt is useless 
to disturb the character of Wayne, or super- 
sede him in public opinion, or dim the impres- 
sion of his services and virtues. His fame is 
fixed, and no specious indirection nor conven- 
tional after-thought can ignore or obscure it. 
You will prepare a more prominent niche for 



66 Life and Character of 

another one in vain. For it is not in human 
authority, with its enactments and decisions, 
nor in artistic craft, with its bronze or marble, 
to equah'ze or alter or transpose the merits of 
the dead. Every effort to put another in his 
place will be imputed to partiality or preju- 
dice. And no explanation can refute this 
plausible inference. His absence will be more 
conspicuous than the other's obtrusive pres- 
ence. Your preference will only be damaged 
by the contrast. 

" For these statues are not merely to adorn 
a corridor, or encourage art, or for a local 
purpose, or a transitory show, but for the 
permanent glory of the State. They are to 
perpetuate, in stone or metal, her dearest off- 
spring, her Cornelian jewels. They are to 
represent the best types of her early heroism, 
patriotism, and genius — those who achieved 
the most for her institutions, her progress, and 
her renown — such as in the unchristian ages 
would have had tombs in the Ceramicus, vic- 
torious arches across the Imperial ways, colos- 
sal figures in the mighty avenues of Carnac. 

** It is meet, therefore, that we should not 
select for this great honor men of uncertain 



James Bowen Everhart. 67 

citizenship or inferior claims. But when, here- 
after, ambitious youth shall seek in the pan- 
theon of patriots for inspiration and example, 
let them behold his form, who was a leading 
spirit in the people's struggle, and who con- 
tributed the peerless feat of Stony Point tow- 
ards their immortal triumph." 

On the resolution in the Senate relative to 
the removal of the remains of William Penn, 
his speech was pronounced a magnificent tri- 
bute to the founder of the State. 

Mr. Everhart introduced several beneficial 
rules for the government of the Senate. He 
never had any particular idol, but aimed to 
prevent bad legislation as much as possible. 
He amended a number of bills upon all sub- 
jects, many perhaps for the better ; one, a tax 
bill, which might have prevented his native 
county, with others of the State, from recov- 
ering some thousands of dollars of overpaid 
taxes. He served during his term on the fol- 
lowing committees: Judiciary, Banks, Educa- 
tion, Library, Constitutional Reform, Federal 
Relations — the latter of which he was the 
Chairman, — Pensions and Gratuities, Compare 



68 Life and Character of 

Bills, and Agriculture. On all these com- 
mittees he was an earnest worker, and carefully- 
scrutinized all the work laid before those 
committees. 

He never accepted a railroad pass, and was 
the only member of the Legislature who, when 
no objections were made to paying, declined to 
take the extra pay, amounting in his case to 
some two thousand dollars, which he covered 
back into the State treasury. He was per- 
haps the only Senator who refused the per- 
quisite of postage stamps after the stationery 
rule went into effect. Mr. Everhart declined 
these apparent favors, not because he desired 
to make any special exhibition, but because 
he conscientiously believed that under the 
Constitution of the State he was forbidden 
to do so. 

At the time he resigned his seat in the Sen- 
ate, having been elected to represent the Sixth 
Congressional District in the Lower House of 
the National Legislature, his fellow Senators 
paid him glowing tributes. 

Senator Cooper, of Delaware county said : 
" I had intended, upon the presentation of this 
resignation, or the entry of the Senator from 



y antes Baiven Ever hart, 69 

Chester (Mr. Everhart) upon his Congressional 
term, to say something to indicate the feeling 
that I have for him. But I will briefly say 
that whatever regret there may be at our part- 
ing company, and whatever regret I may have 
in ceasing to be a colleague and becoming a 
constituent, is tempered by the fact that he 
has been promoted to a higher position ; and 
that as a constituent I was glad to give him 
my support for that higher position. 

" I need not say in his presence that there is 
no gentleman in the counties of Chester and 
Delaware who stands higher in the estimation 
of the people than the Senator from Chester ; 
and I shall look forward to his career in Con- 
gress to be as bright there as it has been here. 
His conduct upon this floor for the past six 
years has been distinguished by the highest 
ability, and I can add no more to that fact." 

Senator Gordon : — '' I think that the senti- 
ments expressed by the Senator from Dela- 
ware (Mr. Cooper) are those of every member 
of this body who has been brought into per- 
sonal association with the Senator from Ches- 
ter (Mr. Everhart.) 

*' To part with him after a long period of 



JO Life and Character of 

official connection is no ordinary event. It 
would be no ordinary event if this happened 
to any Senator. As Burke said in that mag- 
nificent rhapsody upon the death of his son : 

" 'At this exigent moment the loss of a fin- 
ished man is not easily supplied.* 

" His constituency, and the greater con- 
stituency of the State at large, are those who 
have most to regret in this separation. 

" For ourselves, the pure and upright legisla- 
tor leaves us. The gentleman whose honor 
was such that he felt a stain like a wound ; 
with a wit that loved to play, but not to harm ; 
the scholar, the well-equipped lawyer, the 
painstaking and careful legislator leaves this 
body to-day. That is no ordinary event, nor 
should be passed by unmarked. My associa- 
tions v/ith him have been of such an intimate 
character that I cannot trust myself lest I 
might violate the proprieties of this place if I 
spoke all my heart on this subject." 

Senator Herr : — '' Without any expectation 
of rising at this moment or on this occasion, I 
think it is entirely in keeping with the occasion 
and with the moment for me to attempt to 
bear my small tribute of respect to the outgo- 



yames Bowen Everhart, 71 

ing Senator. In rising to do that I am sure I 
but echo not only the feeling, but give form 
and expression to that spirit of courtesy, 
mutual confidence and respect which always 
has prevailed in this Chamber, one for the 
other. But that spirit of courtesy requires, 
perhaps, just now a special emphasis because 
it refers to the Senator from Chester (Mr. 
Everhart). His private and personal character 
has commanded our respect and admiration ; 
because whoever came in contact with him 
privately and personally always discovered 
and instantly recognized that he was a gentle- 
man, and when that is said I am sure an 
epitome is delivered. 

** But his public career is the only career that 
we, perhaps, are justified or called upon to 
glance at, and when we recall that, surely there 
is no one here but will agree with me when I 
declare that it has been marked with a mutual 
courtesy and respect, a deference for the feel- 
ings and wishes of others, while always in 
debate regnant and powerful. And when he 
passes away from us now to a scene that I do 
not think is any higher nor any more exalted, 
it surely will be an encouragement to him to 



72 Life and Character of 

know that he carries with him the good wishes 
and the plaudits of the Senate of Pennsylvania. 

" There was a time I just recall, in the stormy 
days of England, when charges were made 
against Walpole of a character that reflected 
on his integrity, involving the character, too, 
of many friends, that Walpole rose upon the 
floor of Parliament and said : 

**' Whatever defects maybe detected in my 
private character or public career, I, at least, 
Mr. Speaker, may call upon my God to declare 
that these hands are clean.' 

*' We all can apply that to the Senator from 
Chester, and hope that if a monument should 
ever be erected to his memory, the most glori- 
ous epitaph will be : ' These hands are clean.' " 

Senator Smith : — " It seemed but yesterday 
that I had the pleasure, I may say the honor, 
of making the acquaintance of the Senator from 
Chester (Mr. Everhart), who is about to leave 
us, and yet it has been years. In all that time 
our intercourse has been unbroken. His refined 
taste and elegant deportment have been such 
that we might all emulate. His poetic gifts we 
have listened to with admiration and intense 
interest." 



yames Boiven Bverkart. Jt, 

Senator Stewart : — This resignation dissolves 
and interrupts a fellowship which has been 
agreeable and pleasant, and profitable to us all. 
I cannot allow the occasion to pass without 
expressing my own regret at the departure of 
the Senator from Chester (Mr. Everhart). 

"After a continuous term of service in this 
body for six years, the people of a wide constit- 
uency, recognizing his ability and worth, have 
elevated him to a position of wider influence 
and, perhaps, greater responsibility. 

" It is fitting, Mr. President, and it is certainly 
most gratifying to us, his colleagues, to know 
that his services of labor here are terminated in 
this way. In common with all the Senators 
here, I have for the distinguished Senator the 
highest admiration and unqualified respect, and 
I feel assured that whatever body he may enter 
in the future, he will command the same 
respect, the same confidence, and the same 
admiration. He carries with him not only my 
own personal wishes for his success, but he 
carries with him, I am sure, the best wishes 
of every member of this body." 

Senator Lee : — ** I did not expect to say any 
thing on this occasion, but I am simply moved 



74 yames Bowen EverharL 

to what I say by my sincere regard for the 
Senator from Chester. 

'' Four years ago I came into this Chamber 
without any previous legislative experience, 
one of the youngest members of the Senate. I 
was here but a few days when I learned to rely 
with implicit confidence upon the advice and 
counsel of the Senator from Chester (Mr. 
Everhart). In all the contests of this body 
since, and there has been contests between 
right and wrong, the voice and vote of the 
Senator from Chester have been uniformly 
on the side of right. 

" I can pay him no higher tribute than this. 

** The people of his district, recognizing his 
conspicuous service here, that he did not sim- 
ply represent a district, but that larger con- 
stituency, the State, have promoted him to 
a wider, if not higher field of usefulness. 

" I simply rise now, Mr. President, to express 
my sincere and profound regret at his depart- 
ure, and to wish him in his new field of labor 
the same success which he has uniformly 
achieved here." 



CHAPTER IX, 

IN no sense of the word could Mr. Everhart 
be termed an office-seeker; to those who 
knew him he often spoke upon the difficulties 
surrounding a man in public life. His innate 
modesty was such that he could not, in the 
most unobtrusive manner, intimate to any one 
that he would like to have them vote for him ; 
yet he fully recognized the duties of a citizen 
of the Republic, and was always ready to obey 
the demands of the people. It was while he 
was still a Senator, he was solicited and urged 
by friends to permit his name to be used as a 
candidate for Congressional honors, to repre- 
sent the Sixth District of Pennsylvania in the 
National House of Representatives, For some 
time he refused to consider the importunities 
of his friends in both Chester and Delaware 
counties, but finally consented. At the same 
time he told them in unmistakable language 
that they must not expect him to solicit sup- 
porters, saying: "You know that I have never 

75 



76 Life and Character of 

asked any man to give me his support for office ; 
I believe in the good old maxim ' that the office 
should seek the man, and not the man the 
office.* " He also imposed another condition 
upon those who undertook the management of 
his canvass, to wit : " There shall be no promise 
of any kind made directly or indirectly to any 
one for his suffrage." He had five competitors 
for the honor, and in the Republican nomina- 
ting convention, after a hard struggle, his op- 
ponents, one by one, retired from the contest, 
and on the twenty-fifth ballot he was nomi- 
nated. On the evening of his being placed 
upon the ticket, he was congratulated at his 
home by over three thousand people. 
At the general election the vote was : 

Chester, Delaware. The District 

Everhart (Rep.) . . . . 8,966 5,649 14,615 

Clyde (Dem.) .... 6,113 3,^97 9,810 

Pennypacker (Proh.) . . 316 — 316 

The plurality of Mr. Everhart was 4,805, and 
his majority 4,489. 

In 1884 he was again a candidate for re- 
nomination. Two of his former opponents 
and another aspirant entered the contest. In 
the nominating convention he again was placed 
upon the ticket after a struggle in which no 



yames Bowen Ever hart, 'j'j 

less than twenty-three ballots were cast before 
a result was acquired. At the general election 
the vote was : 

Chester. Delaware. The District, 

Everhart (Rep.) . . . 10,791 7,802 18,593 

Heckel (Dem.) . . . 7,071 4,480 ii,55i 

Passmore (Proh.) ... 558 49 607 

The plurality of Mr. Everhart was 7,042, and 
his majority 6,535. 

Again, in 1886, he was a candidate for the 
third time, with two of his former competitors. 

In the convention a very exciting contro- 
versy took place upon the refusal of the judge 
of elections in Westtown tov/nship, refusing to 
accept the votes of two citizens at the primary 
election. The case was laid before the con- 
vention, but the chairman of that body de- 
clined to hear the protest, and referred it to a 
committee, who reported in favor of sustaining 
the action of the judge of the election, and 
also declined to hear the minority report. In 
consequence of this action of the chair, the 
delegate from Westtown was forced to cast 
his vote for Mr. Everhart's opponent, thus 
losing to him the nomination by one vote. 
The action of the convention was protested 
against by the friends of Mr. Everhart, and 



78 Life and Character of 

an appeal was made to the Republican voters 
of the district, and a protest sent to the 
Delaware conferees. They, however, decided 
not to undo the work of the Chester county- 
convention. 

The friends of Mr. Everhart then proceeded 
to make a contest at the general election, and 
insisted that he should permit his name to go 
before the people of the district as the regular 
nominee of the party, on the ground that a 
fraud had been committed in the convention. 
In response to this demand from several hun- 
dreds of prominent citizens, Mr. Everhart 
accepted the situation and issued the following 
address : 

** To the Repiiblica7is of Chester and Delaware 
Counties : 
"To the numerous requests, written or 
otherwise, by Republicans in various parts of 
the District urging me to stand as the regular 
nominee of the party for Congress, I reply that 
I have consented to do so. Regularity does 
not depend on names and forms, but on facts 
and principles. And he is the regular candi- 
date who had the right to a majority of the 
votes. 



yames Bowen Everhart. 79 

" The late Republican convention by its in- 
action allowed instructions from Westtown to 
be illegally counted against, instead of for, the 
choice of that township. At their delegate 
election two electors' votes, which would have 
given the undersigned the majority of instruc- 
tions, were rejected. These electors were 
qualified in every respect, as was abundantly 
proved. They were natives and residents of 
the neighborhood, gentlemen of character, life- 
long members of the Republican party, and 
except casting a ballot for Cleveland generally 
voted its ticket, and this year promised to 
support it — a promise which gives even a 
Democrat a right to vote in the organization. 
Any stricter test than this would afford no 
chance for the party's continuance or growth. 
The rejection of the votes referred to was 
therefore a denial of the right of suffrage and 
of citizenship, of the right of participation in 
the government they live under and sup- 
port. The officer chosen by a handful of 
bystanders, though it is said against their 
advice, classed these voters with minors and 
aliens. This seems like a new experience in 
politics. We thus see how the judge made 



8o Life and Character of 

the ticket. A nomination brought about by 
such a process — by the exclusion of proper 
votes, by the violation of individual rights, 
party usages, and public law — cannot be ex- 
cused or accepted. And as neither the con- 
ference nor their candidates nor those who 
boasted of majorities would agree to refer 
the case back again to the township or the 
county, we who honor the party and believe 
in the strength and truth of our position ap- 
peal to the honest judgment of the people. 

*' James B. Everhart." 

This address was followed by a call for a 
public meeting of citizens of Chester county, 
which assembled in Horticultural Hall, West 
Chester, on the twenty-fifth day of September, 
eighteen days after the county convention. 
The late Dr. Nathan A. Pennypacker, who 
was one of Mr. Everhart's first competitors, 
was chosen president of the meeting. Ad- 
dresses of a stirring character were made by 
Dr. Pennypacker ; Ex-Congressman Washing- 
ton Townsend ; Thomas W. Pierce, Chairman 
of the Republican County Committee ; Colonel 
H. H. Gilkyson ; and Rev. William L. Bull, an 



James Bowen Everhart, 8i 

Episcopal clergyman. The meeting, without 
opposition, declared Mr. Everhart to be the 
regular nominee of the party. He was called 
upon to address the assemblage, and as he 
stepped upon the stage, was greeted with 
cheers, waving of hats and handkerchiefs. He 
said briefly: ** Fellow Citizens — You have 
come up to-day in imposing numbers from 
all callings and quarters of the District, not as 
delegates or agents, but as the people in your 
own persons and in your sovereign power. 
To your consideration we commend our cause. 
Your well-known character for fealty to party 
and to country, your wise discernment of the 
facts, your earnest reprobation of persistent 
wrong, your honest zeal for justice, give ample 
assurance of ultimate success." (Cheers.) 

The result of this action of the people 
placed two Republicans in the field. For 
about six weeks a very exciting campaign 
was carried on by all parties, resulting in 
the election of his Republican opponent. 

In 1888 the friends of Mr. Everhart insisted 
that he should once more lead them, to which 
demand he consented, and a vigorous campaign 
was being conducted. Early in August Mr. 



82 yames Bowen Ever hart, 

Everhart was stricken with illness, from 
which he did not recover, and on the twenty- 
third of the month, within nine days of the 
time appointed for the primary elections, and 
twelve of the convention, he died. 



CHAPTER X. 

ON the fourth day of March, 1883, Mr. 
Everhart entered upon his duties as 
Congressman. When he went to Washington 
he remained at his post throughout the en- 
tire session, nor did he fail to record his vote 
in a single instance upon any bill or measure. 
His faithful presence was the same in the 
Forty-ninth Congress. He aided in obtain- 
ing pensions for a great number of persons, 
secured several new post-ofifices in his dis- 
trict, and presented a large number of peti- 
tions upon various subjects, not only from his 
constituents, but from other petitioners. 

Among the bills of a public character that 
were presented by him were : bills " To equalize 
the right of fishing in the navigable waters 
of the United States"; ''To establish the 
metric system in government affairs"; "To 
erect monuments to William Penn and Gen- 
eral Anthony Wayne in the Rotunda of the 
Capitol " ; " To enact public buildings in the 

83 



84 Life and Character of 

city of Chester." He also offered amend- 
ments to a number of bills; the most notable 
were : " To the Pension Appropriation bill," 
the amendment being as follows : *' Provided 
that all applicants for pension shall be pre- 
sumed to have had no disability at the time 
of enlistment, but such presumption may be 
rebutted." This amendment was adopted by 
a vote of 117 ayes to 14 nays. To the Bureau 
of Animal Industry bill he offered the follow- 
ing amendment : " Provided, that no State or 
Territory or part thereof shall be declared in 
quarantine, if the Governor of the same shall 
officially certify to the President of the United 
States he is satisfied, from thorough inves- 
tigation, no disease dangerous to the animal 
industry of the nation exists therein." This 
amendment was adopted. To the Electoral 
Count bill Mr. Everhart made this amend- 
ment : "And the joint convention shall then 
proceed to vote, the House voting by States, 
each State having two votes, and the Senate 
voting per capita." This amendment was also 
adopted. 

Mr. Everhart was an uncompromising oppo- 
nent to the distribution of free railroad passes 



y antes Bowen Ever hart, 85 

by railroad companies, either directly or indi- 
rectly. In the Interstate Commerce bill he 
offered this amendment to govern free passes : 
"And no railroad company or companies shall 
grant free passes allowing persons to ride free 
from one State or Territory to another. Pro- 
vided that the prohibition shall not apply to 
officers or employees of railroad companies, or 
to the United States Supervisors or Commis- 
sioners of railroads ; to cases of charity ; nor 
prevent the issuing of excursion or commuta- 
tion tickets at special rates." This amendment 
was rejected by the House. 

During all of Mr. Everhart's public life in 
both the State Senate and in Congress he 
never accepted a railroad pass, though he was 
in constant receipt of these favors. He invaria- 
bly returned them to the source from which 
they emanated, with thanks for the courtesy 
intended. And in making the declination he 
frankly stated, in unmistakable language, that 
he did not think it right or proper for him as a 
public officer to accept such gratuity. 

He also offered amendments to a number of 
other bills, some of which were adopted and 
others rejected. 



86 Life and Character of 

During the consideration of the River and 
Harbor bill in the Committee of the Whole, 
making appropriations for the construction, 
repair, and preservation of certain public 
works on rivers and harbors, and for other 
purposes, Mr. Everhart said : 

"■ Mr. Chairman : — It is proper to commend 
the liberal conduct of the committee in the 
House ; but, without disparaging their motives 
or their labors, we may not be indifferent to 
the defects of the measure they have intro- 
duced. The report is but a syllabus, with 
brief statement and scant argument ; alludes 
to the Engineer's estimates and some local 
demands only to say they were not complied 
with ; admits some errors, deprecates criticism, 
and in some parts disarms it. But the appro- 
priations are remarkable for their number, 
diversity, and amount. 

" It appears that no spot or object is too 
grand or too insignificant to be ignored. The 
salt water and the fresh, the sea-coast and the 
tow-path, the banks of the great lakes and the 
beds of little streams, leveed cities and sine- 
cure ports, shoals where the mussels bury, and 
sloughs like, perhaps, * that Serbonian bog, 



yames Bowen Ever hart. dtj 

where armies whole have sunk,* receive in 
various degrees the care and bounty of the 
bill. And yet it is clear that the distribution 
is not always equitably averaged and applied. 

" Fifteen millions of dollars is ' a good 
round sum ' to be taken from the public 
purse ; and yet this committee 

***The Gordian knot of it will unloose, 
Familiar as their garter.' 

They pour it out with the exuberance and 
generosity of some high power, and it falls 
upon the favored places as freely as the 
golden shower of Jupiter on Danae. Nor is 
the sum in every instance directed by adequate 
importance or necessity. It is unrestricted by 
unpronounceable names, by obscurity of situa- 
tion, by dearth of water, by mass of obstruc- 
tion, by difificulty of distance, or by lack of 
people. 

*' Bayous are to be improved where the 
alligator wallows and the pelican feeds ; and 
inlets where King Frost holds his carnival in 
palaces of ice ; and shores which seem as 
remote and fabulous as those of Calypso or 
Atlantis. 



88 Life and Character of 

** There is nothing, Mr. Chairman, which 
seems too incredible to be embraced within 
the limits of this bill." [Applause.] At this 
point of his remarks the Chairman announced 
that Mr. Everhart's time had expired, but 
several members yielded their time, and he 
proceeded : 

** Mr. Chairman, I was saying that the scope 
and purpose of the bill are extraordinary. 
Every sort of information and construction 
seems to have been employed in order to 
extend this committee's jurisdiction. Chan- 
nels, beset with mud, or rocks, or rapids, are 
to be deepened or widened without the ulti- 
mate possibilities of commerce. Canals are to 
be bought, or built, or seized, or accepted, and 
tunnels are to be pierced, bridges to be sprung, 
dikes and dams to be constructed, for the 
apparent relief of particular States or riparian 
owners. Enormous experiments, which hither- 
to have failed, are to be repeated with aggra- 
vated cost on the ' Father of Waters,' with no 
assurance of better benefit to navigation. 

** So the bill orders which is now before us. 
Such is this unpretentious roll, which refers to 
places which no gazetteer has ever mentioned ; 



jfames Bozven Ever hart. 89 

to a nomenclature which no polyglot lexicon 
can explain ; and to regions of climatic varia- 
tions with which no signal bureau corresponds. 
[Laughter and applause.] And though this 
simple pamphlet be not as elegant as those 
which had the imprimatur of the Elzevirs, or 
the binding of Baskerville ; though it be not 
as rare as some Palimpsests of the Vatican, nor 
as interesting as the ' Splendid Shilling,* or the 
'Adventures of a Guinea,' yet it is loaded with 
colossal figures which no bank ledger can ex- 
hibit ; its pages glistening with treasures, and 
its every sentence a promise of gold. But let 
us not be seduced. [Applause.] Let us not 
yield to the temptation, lest, like the roll in 
the prophetic vision, it be written between the 
lines, 'within and without, with lamentations 
and woe,' which, if we swallow, may not be to 
us, as to Ezekiel, as sweet as honey in the 
inner man." 

The press throughout the country spoke in 
flattering terms of this effort of Mr. Everhart 
to prevent the misappropriation of the public 
funds. 

The Philadelphia Record said : ** Congress- 



go Life and Character of 

man Everhart did himself credit by opposing 
the River and Harbor bill in a careful and 
convincing speech. He has the thanks of the 
Record^ and he ought to have the applause of 
a grateful constituency. A District that sends 
a man to Congress who will not log-roll has 
done the country some service." 

The Baltimore Sun said : " When he com- 
menced his speech no one paid the least atten- 
tion. To do so would have been a radical 
departure from the usual order, and there was 
no expectation that he would be other than a 
humdrum in his matter and manner. He 
uttered but a few words, however, when the 
attention of the whole House was concen- 
trated upon him and so remained until he 
concluded." 

The CJiester (Delaware county) Times said : 
** It is not often that the name of our repre- 
sentative in Congress is flashed over the wires 
as having made a set speech before his col- 
leagues. But perhaps because of this fact, 
which is due altogether to Mr. Everhart*s 
modesty, the House was all the more aston- 



yames Bowen Everhart. 91 

ished the other day when the modest, un- 
assuming gentleman who represents us so 
faithfully rose in his place and in vigorous 
though polished terms denounced the con- 
glomeration of wise recommendations and 
positive frauds which is known as the River 
and Harbor bill. And he has vastly risen in 
the esteem of the House by his courageous 
denunciation of wrong.** 

The Media (Delaware county) Record^ in an 
editorial, said : " Congressman Everhart op- 
posed the measure, and so strong were his 
sallies against the gross extravagance of the 
measure, several members voluntarily offered 
to yield him their share of time to continue 
his speech. Nobody attempted to answer Mr. 
Everhart, and he deserves the thanks of his 
constituents for his action in the premises. It 
is gratifying to note such fealty to the inter- 
ests of the tax-payers of not merely his own 
District, but of the entire country, and it is 
equally agreeable to commend the work so 
well done." 

The West Chester Village Record editorially 



92 Life and Character of 

said: "The River and Harbor bill has grown in 
the Senate from fifteen million dollars, which 
the House thought a big enough steal, to eigh- 
teen millions. It is gratifying to know that our 
member of Congress has raised his voice 
against the iniquities of the present bill and 
voted against it." 

On the occasion of the consideration of the 
Oleomargarine bill in the Committee of the 
Whole, defining butter, also imposing a tax 
upon and regulating the manufacture, sale, 
importation, and exportation of oleomargarine, 
Mr. Everhart said : 

** Mr. Chairman : — The right to tax is coeval 
with sovereignty ; is essential to its existence ; 
needs neither grant nor reservation, and is 
limited only by the uniformity of its operation 
and the wisdom of the government. It is a 
legislative right, and no court will inquire as to 
the degree of its exercise. It may impose 
prohibitory burdens upon foreign and domestic 
products. It may discriminate for or against 
industries or classes. It may throw greater 
restrictions around distilleries than breweries ; 



yames Bcnven Ever hart, 93 

favor cider more than wine, and cigars more 
than cigarettes. And Congress under other 
clauses may bestow charities, endow schools, 
grant pensions, punish counterfeiters, and by 
the establishment of a national board of health 
provide against the invasion of disease. The 
constitutionality of the question under consid- 
eration seems therefore beyond dispute, 
whether it be for revenue to the government 
or for the public welfare. The policy is 
justified by the facts. 

" Mr. Chairman, the time-honored business of 
butter-making is threatened with signal mis- 
chief. Another article has been put in circula- 
tion not as original, or auxiliary, or even as a 
substitute, but skilfully disguised so as to pass 
for the honest product. And this is oleomar- 
garine. [Laughter.] Composed, as said, in 
some instances at least, of miscellaneous offal, 
the slag of the butcher shop, the kitchen, and 
the alley, dissolved, neutralized, combined, and 
prepared by drugs and temperatures so that it 
may resemble the taste, form, and color, and 
bear the name of butter. Then its fabrication 
and excellence are lauded as if its origin were 
associated with springs and pastures, with cows 



94 Life and Character of 

and churns, and all the charm and flavor of the 
dairy. [Applause.] 

** The more perfect the imitation the more 
salable and dangerous the commodity. And 
this mixture its friends expect the poor man to 
roll under his tongue as if it were a morsel 
sweet as sin, and which indeed it may be. 
[Applause and laughter.] Against this sub- 
stance, whose claim now to be deemed a rival 
industry savors of a false pretension, the bill 
would protect the people, as other measures 
protect them against bogus coin and the impor- 
tation of infected rags. It is designed — such 
a deception seems even more reprehensible 
than that which exaggerates or disparages, or 
that which surreptitiously abstracts property, 
or that violence which assails the credit of the 
real article, confounds its identity, impairs it 
prestige. And although, if the oleomargarine 
ingredients be neither filthy nor deleterious, 
nay, though it be pure as the ' icicle on Dian's 
temple ' and wholesome as the ' bread of 
angels,* or * like the sovereign'st thing on 
earth,' yet still it is but a counterfeit claiming 
to be genuine. And being of cheaper materials 
and of more extensive production, its tendency. 



yames Bowen Ever hart, 95 

like that of poor money to expel the better, 
would, unhindered, usurp the market and 
corrupt the trade. And this to the serious 
aggravated damage of that great majority who 
cultivate the soil, whose sweat and labor 
mingle with its furrows, and augment the 
public wealth ; who supply us sustenance from 
the harvest and the orchard ; who are the con- 
servators of law and order ; and whose brawny 
patriotism is the last unfailing reliance in the 
hour of trouble, in riot, and in war." [Loud 
applause.] 

This speech in defence of the product of the 
legitimate dairy was commented on in compli- 
mentary terms by the press throughout the 
entire country, especially in the rural districts. 
At the seventh annual meeting of the Dairy- 
men's Association held in Philadelphia on 
the fifteenth of September, 1886, Mr. Reall, 
President of the Association, spoke particularly 
of the services rendered him by Mr. Everhart, 
in his exertions at Washington the preceding 
winter. The Association Committee on Reso- 
lutions, through Mr. W. C. Rice, President of 
the Minnesota Dairymen's Association, pre- 



96 Life and Character of 

sented a series of resolutions stating Mr. Ever- 
hart had the thanks of the Association for his 
efforts in behalf of wholesome dairy products. 

The Republican county meetings of both 
1885 and 1886 passed resolutions commending 
his course as the Representative of the district. 

Mr. Everhart was a member of the following 
Congressional Committees : Coinage, Weights, 
and Measures; War Claims; Pacific Railroads; 
Alcoholic Liquor Traffic. He was a regular 
attendant at all of the meetings of those 
committees. 



CHAPTER XL 

ON the second day of August Mr. Ever- 
hart was taken ill with an aggravated 
attack of cholera morbus, from which he ral- 
lied very slowly; but on the fifth he was taken 
with a severe chill, followed with an acute at- 
tack of dysentery. Although he had the best 
of medical advice and attention he did not rally ; 
but gradually became weaker and weaker, until 
August twenty-third when he passed, most 
peacefully, to his heavenly abode. His death 
occurred a few minutes before six o'clock. At 
no time during his illness did he lose his 
control of his intellectual powers, and spoke, 
though in a weakened voice, to members of 
his family a few hours before he died. 

THE BAR MEETING. 

The bar of Chester county at a meeting 
held in the court-room on the day following 
the death of Mr. Everhart, was very largely 
attended. On motion of Col. Francis C. 

97 



98 Life and Character of 

Hooton, President Judge J. Smith Futhey 
(since deceased) was called to the Chair, and 
J. Newton Huston, Esq., selected Secretary. 
Hon. Washington Townsend moved that the 
Chair appoint a committee to prepare appropri- 
ate resolutions. Judge Futhey appointed as the 
committee Hon. Washington Townsend, Hon. 
Robert E. Monaghan, Col. Francis C. Hooton, 
Wilmer W. McElree, and S. Duffield Mitchell, 
Esqrs. The committee, after a brief absence, 
reported as follows: 

"The members of the Chester county Bar 
have heard with profound regret and sorrow 
of the death of James B. Everhart, late mem- 
ber of this bar. 

** During the time he was an active member 
of the bar, he was capable, industrious, and 
painstaking, faithful to his clients, fair and 
courteous to his colleagues, respectful to the 
Court, and influential before a jury, and had 
he continued the practice of the law he would 
have obtained a high standing in the legal 
profession. 

"As a member of the Legislature of Penn- 
sylvania he devoted himself to the best inter- 
ests of his immediate constituents and of the 



y antes Bowen Everhart, 99 

State at large, and he was so conscientious and 
upright in his character and conduct that, when 
whispers of improper conduct or legislation 
were rife in the community, not the least im- 
peachment of his motive or action was ever 
made, his reputation for integrity being entirely 
spotless. 

"As a member of Congress he was assiduous 
in the discharge of his duties and ever atten- 
tive to the requirements and interests of the 
people of his district and of the nation, and 
his sterling integrity and his eloquence in the 
discussion of national affairs procured him the 
esteem of all who knew him. 

" In private life his ripe scholarship, his ex- 
tensive learning, his genial manners, warmth 
of friendship, and his purity of life and con- 
duct made him hosts of friends, and in his 
death the members of this bar and the com- 
munity at large will feel that they have lost 
a pure, high-minded, and honored fellow- 
citizen. 

^^ Resolvedy That these minutes be spread 
upon the records of the court, that a copy be 
furnished the newspapers, and also a copy to 
the family of the deceased." 



I oo Life mid Character of 

The following eulogistic remarks were made 
by the members of the bar. 

Hon. Robert E. Monaghan: 

" I do not know whether or not the mem- 
bers of the bar knew more law years ago than 
they do now, but they were accustomed at the 
time when I first came to West Chester to ap- 
pear in court with a large number of books 
bearing upon their cases. At that period Mr. 
Everhart was in active and full practice at this 
bar, and in this way I remember him coming 
into court prepared for the trial of his cases. 
I remember his zeal in behalf of his client. 

** In politics he was a Republican from con- 
viction, and although he and I differed upon 
political questions, he was always affable and 
pleasant. I never knew him to speak a harsh 
word of any one. Mr. Everhart was a warm, 
true, and constant friend, and had a desire to 
impress his friendship. A few days before he 
took sick we walked down the street together 
to his home. He asked me to walk in, and 
while I sat on the porch he went into the 
house and brought out a copy of the book 
containing his speeches, which he published 



James Bowen Everhart, loi 

recently. He desired me to take it as a memento 
from him, and keep it. I had him to write my 
name in it, and underneath the words ' From 
the Author.' 

" It was the last time I saw him alive. 
When I learned the nature of his sickness 
I felt that he would not recover, and said 
so to his physician. Such thoughts oppressed 
me, but I felt that he would die. The 
Hon. Samuel J. Randall, sent me a pre- 
scription, he had used with success upon 
himself, when suffering in a similar way. 
This, however, was received too late to be 
of any use." 

Hon. Washington Townsend began by 
adding his approval to what had just been said 
by Mr Monaghan concerning the zeal, fidelity, 
and earnestness with which Mr. Everhart ad- 
vocated the cause of his clients. He then traced 
his literary and public career, and pronounced 
a warm eulogy upon him, in which he said : 

" Perhaps I have known Mr. Everhart longer 
than any one else here. I knew him in his 
boyhood and when at school. I heard him 
make his first political speech. It was at 



I02 Life and Character of 

the old Washington Hotel in the Clay-Polk 
campaign in 1844. It was an eloquent effort, 
and made such an impression as to mark him 
at once as an orator. He was ever after in 
demand as a speaker at campaign meetings 
over the county. 

*' I knew him as a painstaking young lawyer. 
He came from college well equipped for work. 
His tastes were of a literary character, and his 
father gave him opportunity to equip himself 
for any position in life that he might see fit 
to choose. In his public life as a member 
of the Legislature of Pennsylvania he was 
known to be honest and attentive to his duties. 
I have heard men who were opposed to Mr. 
Everhart, politically, pay tribute to his integ- 
rity and uprightness. He was well versed in 
the literature of the day and in that of ancient 
times. He could draw from these immense 
stores, as occasion demanded, an abundance of 
illustration with which to enrich his speeches." 

Col. Francis C. Hooton : 

" Mr. Chairman : — We have been again called 
together to make our last remarks upon the 
death of one of our fellow-members of the 



y antes Bow en Ever hart. 103 

Bar, and to pass resolutions appropriate to 
such an occasion. There are very few amongst 
us who were all in all just what James B. 
Everhart was. 

** I cannot speak of him, as some of you can, 
as a practitioner at the bar, as I had seen him 
try but few cases, but he was still practising 
when I came here to study law, and he had 
several students in his office. Thus his office 
became a popular place for the law-students 
and young lawyers to meet. Mr. Everhart was 
very fond of the society of young lawyers and 
of those who were studying to become lawyers, 
and it afforded him much pleasure to narrate 
to them anecdotes of his travels in foreiorn 
countries and descriptions of the places he had 
seen. 

" Mr. Everhart was very well grounded in 
the principles of the law, and, in fact, in all 
literature. He was a graduate of Princeton 
College, graduating, I think, either first or 
second man. After his graduation at Prince- 
ton, he commenced the study of law. He 
went to Harvard Law School and graduated 
there. Then he went to Edinburgh to study 
the peculiar form of the law administered in 



1 04 Life and Oiarader of 

Scot.ai:c. Then he went to Berlin and studied 
International Law, and after graduating there 
he travelled over Europe, going all over 
Europe, to Constantinople, up the Nile, to 
Jerusalem and all over the Holy Land, and 
then home. In 1876 he was elected to the 
State Senate, and again in 1880, and in 1882 
and 1884 he was elected to Congress. In 
even' position he was called upon to fill he 
established two decided characteristics — de- 
cided ability, and an invincible determination 
to do that which he thought was right. 

" Although possessed of large means he did 
not think it was correct to make use of money 
to succeed in securing political preferment ; 
and in 1876 and 1880 — both Presidential years, 
— in each of which he was a candidate for the 
Senatorial nomination, when making contribu- 
tions to political clubs throughout the country, 
he would not permit his friends, by whom the 
money was conve>'ed to these clubs, even to 
intimate that a contribution would secure their 
support. Mr. Everhart was one of nature's 
noblemen. He was a devoted friend, a sound 
counsellor, and an earnest Christian gentleman. 
It w^ be long before we see his like.** 



James Bozuen Ever hart 105 

Hon. D. Smith Talbot: 

"Mr. Chairman: — In the natural course of 
events we once more assemble to give expres- 
sion to our feelings of sorrow at the death of a 
friend and brother. 

"We all know that Mr. James B. Everhart 
is dead, and we are assembled to pay a tribute 
to his memory and lay a flower upon his tomb. 
This gathering of the members of the bar and 
the solemn silence that pervades the room 
speak eloquently of the high estimation in 
which our late friend was held alike by the 
young and the old. 

" I had the pleasure of his friendship and 
acquaintance from my first appearance in this 
place as a student of law. I have never re- 
ceived any thing but kindness at his hands. 
The language of eulogy is not always the 
language of truth. Anger and criticism stop 
at the brink of the grave, and the deeds of the 
dead are invested with the dignity of death. 
Mr. Everhart inherited the virtues of an honor- 
able ancestry, and around his character clustered 
all gentle and refining influences. He had the 
earnestness of a quiet purpose, the strength of 
a high principle, and, at the same time, the 



io6 Life and Character of 

delicacy of a woman. His ambitions were 
high and lofty, and he had a contempt for the 
demagogue and the hypocrite. He gained 
high political preferment, but never at the 
sacrifice of a principle. He had political rival- 
ries, but he provoked no antagonism. His 
great charity covered and concealed the fail- 
ings of his opponents. In his public and 
private life he was always the modest, dignified 
Christian gentleman. 

" He neither could be flattered by the smiles, 
nor bribed by the favors of those who had 
usurped the distribution of ofifices. He would 
not sacrifice his independence by shaping his 
opinions to suit the designs of partisans. He 
was conscientious in his convictions, and fear- 
less and defiant in battling for the right. He 
blended with his more solid acquirements 
lighter accomplishments, and over all his pub- 
lic acts and private trusts there shone the 
serene beauty of the polished gentleman. 

"• His private benefaction to the poor, needy, 
and distressed was great ; no cry of suffering 
came to him in vain. Noble words may be 
spoken of him, but his best memorial will be 
the tears of the poor. 



jfames Bowen Ever hart, 107 

** While Mr. Everhart has never been in 
practice since I entered the bar, he never lost 
his interest in the profession of his choice, and 
in his leisure moments would quietly slip into 
the court-room, and was an eager listener in 
the trial of cases. He took an interest in the 
young men who came to the bar, and was 
always glad to hear of their success, as well as 
to keep a general knowledge of the changes in 
the practice of the law. 

'* Mr. Everhart, had he continued the prac- 
tice of the law with the application necessary 
to make a livelihood out of it, would have 
made a mark of a very high order at this 01 
any other bar. His tastes were of a refined 
nature, and his thoughts scholarly. But he is 
now gone from our midst, and I am glad to 
pay this tribute to his memory." 

Mr. Charles H. Pennypacker: j 

'* Mr. Chairman : — I do not think any action 
has been begun in this court by James B. 
Everhart since 1861. The last time I remem- 
ber hearing him plead a case was in 1858 or 
1859, when he appeared in behalf of a man 
accused of murder. 



1 08 Life and Character of 

** He was essentially a man of letters, rather 
than one given to the solving of knotty prob- 
lems in dispute between clients. He had trav- 
elled widely and studied deeply. In his library 
were books of which there is no known dupli- 
cate in this country. He read them, under- 
stood them, and applied the knowledge gained 
from them. In public life he was pure and 
high-minded ; and I believe that the time will 
come when every citizen of Chester County 
will rejoice in the knowledge that Mr. Ever- 
hart was born and lived in this country." 

Mr. James J. Creigh : 

" Mr. Chairman : — The example of Mr. Ever- 
hart's life speaks to us more impressively than 
any word which we can utter on this mournful 
occasion. 

" It is his highest eulogy ; it is our greatest 
comfort as we gather around his grave. There 
is nothing in his personal, professional, or 
political career which requires from his friends 
a defense, an apology, or even an explanation. 
He was for many years a member of this bar. 
He came to the bar before I did, and practi- 
cally retired not long after my admission ; but 



y antes Bowen Ever hart. 109 

I am sure that the older members will unite 
with me in saying that he discharged every 
professional duty with ability and zeal, with 
fidelity to his clients, courtesy to his brethren, 
and honor to himself, and that he oftentimes 
eloquently and successfully defended life and 
liberty. He was trained for the bar by a thor- 
ough education in the oflfices of such promi- 
nent attorneys as William M. Meredith and 
Joseph J. Lewis, and by a course of study in 
schools of law in our own country and abroad 
— at Harvard, Edinburgh, and Berlin. He had 
an aptitude for the philosophical and scientific 
conception of the law. He was well grounded 
in the principles and practice and rules of his 
profession. Had he continued in practice he 
would have secured a large clientage, and 
would undoubtedly have become a lawyer of 
great distinction and prominence. He chose 
a different path. 

" His public utterances were thoughtful and 
impressive. In the numerous speeches which 
he made, there are not a few which will take 
high rank in classical eloquence. He possessed 
the oratorical spirit. His mind naturally 
turned to poetical expression ; but he also 



1 1 o Life and Character of 

knew the use of philosophy and logic. His 
real power as an intellectual man was not al- 
ways seen by the public. His intimate friends 
knew him much better in this respect than his 
larger circle of admirers. They saw that along 
with natural ability of the highest order, 
trained and educated by hard study, he had 
complete command of his mental apparatus, 
and that he could use it strongly, clearly, and 
practically when it was necessary to do so. He 
was a full man, and therefore a ready man. 
We can all remember occasions when he laid 
aside the art of polished discourse and took up 
readily and successfully the rugged weapons of 
copious extemporaneous speech. And then 
he was, like other able speakers, armed for 
every emergency. 

" Mr. Chairman, it is his public life which 
will be remembered longest. It has left, as we 
all know, a lasting impression upon the public 
mind. I observe that yesterday and to-day the 
daily papers have been calling special at- 
tention to it. It will long be held in grateful 
appreciation. It is an inspiration to his 
friends. It is now their consecration to what 
he represented. 



James Bowen Everhart, 1 1 1 

*' He was morally and mentally qualified for 
statesmanship. He was an incorruptible, con- 
scientious representative of the people. He 
was as much without reproach and without 
fear as a Bayard or a Sumner. Ambitious, as 
he had a right to be, he did not stoop to 
methods to obtain a seat in the Legislature 
and in Congress of which he could ever be 
ashamed before his God, his country, and his 
conscience. He sought not to serve himself so 
much as to serve the trust committed to him, 
by always doing what was right. He did not 
know how to be a demagogue. 

'* He could not sacrifice his honor and con- 
science, nor disobey the law in letter or in 
spirit, to obtain political advancement, to get 
a nomination. He said to me upon one occa- 
sion : ' The ofifice is not worth it.' He would 
not have taken it at such a price. This was 
the reason that men had confidence in him. 

" No man could successfully assail his char- 
acter. If there was an arrow of defamation 
cast at him it fell to the ground before it 
could reach him. Honorable men passed it 
by with scorn. He was invulnerable. 

*' I count this as almost the best thing which 



112 Life and Character of 

can be said of our departed friend — of my 
friend. Public men must expect to be misun- 
derstood, sometimes misrepresented. But, as 
he once said in closing a beautiful tribute to 
the memory of a brother Senator: 'He who 
Avears the cross of virtue shall win its crown.' 

** Mr. Everhart was a patriotic citizen, a 
friendly neighbor, a hospitable host, a pleasant 
man to meet. He was so unostentatious, so 
free from loud display, so kind in his heart, so 
well-disposed towards everybody, so mindful 
of the feelings of others, so secret in his 
charity, so natural in his manner ; he had, as 
his friends often observed, a rare quality of 
courage insensible to fear of any kind ; he was 
in all respects a gentleman, a good and gracious 
gentleman. 

" To what God gave him bountifully by 
nature, he added what God gave him through 
grace. He was an humble Christian believer, 
a regular attendant upon divine worship, and 
for years a communicant in the Presbyterian 
Church. And so he finished his course in faith. 

" At the break of day, when the sun was 
rising, clothed in light he entered into im- 
mortality. 



James Bowen Evej^hart. 1 1 3 

** ' He passed through glory's morning gate, 
And walked in Paradise.* 

** Of Mr. Everhart, in his other and tenderer 
relations, to his family and intimate friends, I 
cannot speak. It is something almost too 
painful to think about. An unclouded friend- 
ship of many years has strangely come to a 
pause. But the tie is not severed. I hope to 
see him hereafter." 

RESOLUTIONS BY M'CALL POST 3 1, G. A. R. 

At a regular muster of General George A. 
McCall Post No. 31, Grand Army of the Re- 
public, located in West Chester, and held 
August 24, 1888, a committee, appointed for 
the purpose, composed of Rev. Joseph S. 
Evans, James P. Long, and Francis H. Tag- 
gert, reported the following, which was unani- 
mously adopted : 

" Whereas, Having learned of the death of 
our late comrade, Hon. James B. Everhart, 
who has been suddenly stricken down by a 
fatal malady, and thus removed from the 
midst of a devoted and loving family, as well 
as from a community which he has honored, 



1 1 4 Life and Character of 

and by whom he was greatly beloved ; there- 
fore, 

" Resolved, That in the death of Comrade 
James B. Everhart, this Post has lost a valu- 
able member, one whose presence in our midst 
was ever hailed with unfeigned pleasure ; one 
whose words and counsel were ever fraught 
with instruction and profit to his fellow 
Comrades. 

'■'■ Resolved, That we keenly appreciate the 
fact that, while our loss is great and painful, 
yet our community, our State and Nation, have 
sustained a loss which is more far-reaching in 
its effects, in being deprived of the services 
and influence of a legislator whose natural 
ability, education, and unimpeachable integrity 
in public as well as in private life, have won 
for him a reputation of honor and usefulness 
unequalled by few and surpassed by none. 

^'Resolved, That the surviving Comrades, 
members of General George A. McCall Post No. 
31, G. A. R., do hereby tender to the bereaved 
family of our deceased Comrade, our most un- 
feigned heartfelt sympathy, in this their sad 
bereavement in the loss of a true, noble. Chris- 
tian brother." 



James Bowen Ever hart, 115 

RESOLUTIONS OF THE WEST CHESTER PIO- 
NEER CORPS NO. I. 

At a meeting of the West Chester Pioneer 
Corps No. I, called for the purpose of taking 
appropriate action regarding the death of Mr. 
Everhart, who was an honorary member of the 
organization, a committee, consisting of El- 
wood H. Sweney, John Carey, Jr., William T. 
Hunt, Howard Hawley, and H. T. Beaumont, 
was appointed to prepare and present appro- 
priate resolutions, to wit : 

" Whereas, This Corps has learned with pro- 
found sorrow of the death of the Hon. James 
Bowen Everhart, one of its highly distinguished 
honorary members ; 

*' Resolved^ That this organization is pro- 
foundly impressed with the brilliancy of intel- 
lect, the purity of character, unflinching integ- 
rity, and the unswerving devotion to duty 
which characterized the career of our deceased 
honorary member in all his walks of life. 

" Resolved^ That we are deeply sensible of the 
great loss sustained by the death of Mr. Ever- 
hart, not only by this Corps, but also to the 
field of literature, to society and state, of which 
he was a contributor and a useful member. 



1 1 6 Life and Character of 

*^ Resolved^ That this Corps will manifest our 
respect for the memory of its deceased honor- 
ary member and its sympathy with his bereaved 
family by draping their room in mourning for 
the space of thirty days." 

These resolutions being adopted, C. Wesley 
Talbot, Esq., President of the Corps, paid the 
following tribute to the memory of Mr. Ever- 
hart : 

" In obedience to a well-established custom, 
honored by long observance, this organization 
is again called upon to pause for a moment 
from its ordinary duties, and pay a tribute of 
love and respect to the memory of one of its 
eminent dead. 

" The sharp arrow of death has pierced our 
ranks, and a shining mark has been its victim. 
It has opened the urn of grief which is fast 
filling with the tears and affection of a loving 
people. It has snapped asunder the silver 
cord, and the spirit of James Bowen Everhart 
has taken its everlasting flight. The familiar 
form, the kindly smile, the gentle voice, the 
silver tongue, and the ripe intellect, all are 
silent in death. Scholar, traveller, lawyer, 
author, statesman, and philanthropist sleeps 



jfames Bowen Ever hart, 117 

beneath the freshly made mound amid the 
shades of Oaklands. 

" * Nor wreck nor change, nor winter's blight, 
Nor death's remorseless doom. 
Shall dim one ray of holy light 
That gilds his glorious tomb.* 

** We cannot deepen the color of the rose, 
nor add perfume to its fragrance, — the great 
handiwork of nature hath made it perfect ; 
neither can we strengthen nor beautify with 
feeble words the life and character of our de- 
parted friend, — he lived and died one of 
nature's noblemen. 

" His love of truth was so deep, active, and 
constant that he would not have us at this 
time heighten one beautiful color of his nature 
or soften one simplicity of his character. Free 
from ostentation, show, or vainglory, he won 
the admiration of all classes of his fellow-men. 
He was the soul of honor and a living monu- 
ment of integrity. Incapable of a mean thing, 
he rose above party strife, and preferred hon- 
orable defeat to stained victory. Born with 
all the instincts of a gentleman, polished and 
adorned by travel and a thorough knowledge 



1 1 8 Life and Character of 

of the sciences and classics, he was a credit to 
his kindred, an honor to this organization, and 
a blessing to the age in which he lived. 

"As the shadows began to lengthen and the 
receding world became lost to sight, when the 
valley grew chill and the splashing waters 
broke upon his listless ears, methinks no con- 
sciousness of wrongs inflicted, or of trusts 
betrayed, or obligations undischarged, or un- 
kind word to have been recalled, could have 
clouded his eyes as they closed in death ; but 
with a full knowledge that he had labored 
faithfully and well in his Master's vineyard, he 
passed to his eternal rest, surrounded by those 
he so much loved — 

* Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.* 

" May we emulate his virtues, profit by his 
example, and strive to attain his wisdom, so 
that when the messenger of death comes, 
whether it be in the morning, at noon-time, or 
at night, we may greet him at the doorway, 
bid him welcome at the threshold, and stand 
ready for the summons that will join us with 



yames Bowen Everhart, 1 1 9 

that vast army of noble men, the influence of 
whose lives, like the far-away planet, will shine 
on and on for countless ages after they shall 
have ceased to exist." 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE newspaper press of not only Chester 
county but of the entire State spoke of 
Mr. Everhart in the highest terms, both as a 
statesman and a litterateur. The following are 
some of the editorial tributes that were paid to 
his abilities : 

** The death of ex-Congressman Everhart 
will be lamented by many more than the peo- 
ple of the county which has been his home. 
Mr. Everhart was not a politician, in the every- 
day sense of the term, but he was better, — a 
scholar with a sincere and conscientious inter- 
est in public affairs. He was a Republican 
always, but a man of independent thought in 
his attitude toward party management, and 
his comparatively brief public life was charac- 
terized in all his acts by manifest purity of 
purpose. He served both in Congress and in 
the legislature, but in the latter made the 
reputation for which he will be best and long- 
est remembered." — Philadelphia Press, 

1 20 



James Bozven Everhart. 1 2 1 

'* The death of Ex-Congressman James B. 
Everhart will be very vi^idely lamented. In 
Chester county, where he has enjoyed the 
highest representative honors, his death will 
be mourned in all circles, regardless of partisan 
faith. 

" Mr. Everhart was a type of the best and tru- 
est representative men of the age. He was not 
only honest in purpose, but he was honest in 
action, and however his fellow-citizens differed 
from him, he always commanded the respect 
of friend and foe. 

" In the State Senate Mr. Everhart was 
known as one of the few who were ever faith- 
ful to conviction, and in Congress he main- 
tained the same high standard of integrity. 
Had he been more pliable he would doubtless 
have died a Congressman, but he preferred 
fidelity to his faith in the right even when 
weighed in the balance with success. Such a 
man will long live in the grateful memories of 
his people. — Philadelphia Times, 

*' The silent reaper has removed a striking 
and worthy figure from the political arena of 
this State. James Bowen Everhart was a man 



12 2 Life and Character of 

who did service in his time, in his own peculiar 
way, to the public, the influence of which 
ought to extend far beyond the local circle in 
which he was known. At a time when the 
seething tide of iniquity was at its flood in this 
State, one of the most modest and shrinking 
of men appeared at Harrisburg, and, quite un- 
noticed, took his place in the Senate. There 
he remained through five years of public ser- 
vice, and with a record at its close without 
spot or blemish. Intelligent and able beyond 
nearly all his more pretentious and assuming 
associates, faithful to every trust, industrious 
and courageous in the performance of every 
duty, Mr. Everhart did not shine like a meteor 
in a dark place, but his influence was of the 
kind so sorely needed at such a time. Often 
misunderstood and greatly underrated, he 
calmly pursued his way until called by his 
people to serve them in a higher post, and 
thither he turned in the same quiet, unosten- 
tatious way, and without guile, performed 
every duty that came to him as only a manly 
patriot can. Mr. Everhart might have re- 
mained in Congress twenty years without 
reaching the heights whereon other bolder 



James Bowen Ever hart, 123 

though less worthy men attract the public 
gaze and admiration, but the tempter never 
would even have approached him. He was 
an honest servant of the people during the 
closing years of a life that throughout was 
singularly exemplary, and always guided by a 
spirit of gentleness, kindness, and simplicity. 
Chester county has lost a most worthy son, 
and Pennsylvania a citizen who was an honor 
to the State." — Philadelphia Evening Telegraph, 

" Ex-Congressman Everhart, who died yes- 
terday, was a fine example of the sincere 
* scholar in politics.' A true Republican, he 
strove for the best with an expression of indi- 
vidual independent opinion, stated in terms of 
literary tact and taste." — Philadelphia Evening 
News. 

'* The death of James B. Everhart at his 
home in Chester county removes from public 
life an accomplished man and citizen of high 
respect.' ' — Harrisbiirg Independent, 

" A great deal of sorrow is expressed for 
Mr. Everhart's death among West Chester 



1 24 Life and Character of 

and Chester county people, while throughout 
the Sixth District are heard regrets of his 
removal by death. Hon. James B. Everhart 
was an honest, incorruptible, faithful man, and 
would not be swerved from what he thought 
to be right." — Chester (Delaware county) 
Times. 

" The death of Mr. Everhart removes a 
central figure from this district, and one that 
has attracted considerable attention through- 
out the State. In noting his death we recog- 
nize the loss of a gentleman and scholar. . . . 

*' Mr. Everhart was a close student to the 
last. He received a liberal education and 
capped it with college honors, and he added 
to it a profession in which he was fully versed, 
and a scope of literary culture extensive and 
thorough. To these he added the experience 
and observation of travel, so that when his 
manhood was matured he had acquired a fund 
of practical and theoretical knowledge such as 
but few possess. 

"All his tastes led that way, and his student 
life, while it prevented him from mingling with 
the people, equipped him for almost any posi- 



James Boweii Ever hart, 125 

tion in the literary world. His house was his 
home — his books his companions, — and what 
they taught, added to what he thought, formed 
his world. He absorbed knowledge ; at times 
the public caught glimpses of his poetic, ora- 
torical, and literary merits ; they were but 
transient flashes from the rifts of the canopy 
that concealed the brilliant centre from which 
they emanated." — Chester (Delaware county) 
Neivs. 

'* Mr. Everhart was well-known as an orator 
and poet, and the works which he published 
for private circulation are gems. With high 
abilities and sterling generosity and honesty 
he was yet not so well adapted to the ordinary 
political contests as others with less marked 
characteristics, for in many things he lacked 
that practicability so essential to continued 
political success. He was a scholar, a gentle- 
man, and a most worthy citizen — sensitive to 
a degree, too tender for the rude contests of 
the day, always in love with what he conceded 
to be right, but too often impracticable in the 
approaches to very proper aims. In personal 
character he stood as high as any public man 



126 Life and Character of 

ever known to his district." — Dclaivare County 
American, Media, Pa. 

*' The death of Hon. James B. Everhart is a 
pubh'c calamity. In the highest, best, and 
noblest sense Mr. Everhart was a true man in 
civic as in private life ; while his public services 
stamped him as a man of rare ability, high re- 
solve, and patriotic purpose. But he is gone ; 
his earthly pilgrimage is over, and the best we 
can now do is to cherish the memory of his 
deeds, kindly spirit, noble instincts, and gen- 
erous benefactions. 

"• His death leaves a void which, without the 
slightest impulse to be premature or indelicate, 
demands recognition at the hands of those who 
cherish as dearest — in their public aspects — 
Mr. Everhart's past distinguished services both 
as State Senator and Congressman. In these 
spheres he demonstrated the instincts of the 
true patriot — brave, modest, and true — to all 
that popular sovereignty meant or implied." — 
Delaware County Record, Media, Pa. 

*' The announcement of the death of the 
Hon. James B. Everhart fell like a stunning 



Jmnes Bozven Ever hart, 127 

blow upon the people of this county and a 
circle of friends not bounded by county or 
State lines. His illness had scarcely become 
known when the intelligence of his death was 
sent forth. The removal of one so gifted is 
indeed a calamity to the whole country. Mr. 
Everhart was a man conspicuous for his good 
deeds both in public and private life — true, 
honest, brave, incorruptible ; the public service 
and home citizenship sustain a great loss in 
his death." — Press, Oxford, Pa. 

** The death of Hon. James B. Everhart re- 
moves from this scene a man who was in every 
fibre a gentleman. In all his intercourse with 
his fellow-men, whether in public or private 
life, his bearing was that of a sensitive, digni- 
fied, generous man, to whose record there 
clings no taint of dishonor. He carried his 
eminent private virtues into his public career, 
and his record in the Senate of his native 
State as well as in the halls of Congress is 
conspicuous for its absolute freedom from any 
suggestion of selfishness or sordidness. 

" He carried his manhood upon his own 
sturdy shoulders, and while eminent men all 



128 Life and Character of 

around him were being sharply catechised for 
their peculiar positions and important issues, 
Mr. Everhart was always certain to be found 
on the side of justice and right. His fidelity 
was as great in small things as in larger ones, 
and no act of his, either at Harrisburgh or 
Washington, was ever for a moment ques- 
tioned. This much, it seems to us, needs to 
be said in this age, when public ofifice seems 
to be universally regarded as a private trust. 

" Of Mr. Everhart as a private citizen little 
can be said that will add to his good name. 
His uncorruptible, unpretentious life is his 
own best eulogy. Gifted by nature with a 
poetic temperament and filled with a high 
sense of humor, he was a delightful companion, 
a true friend, and a noble citizen. Unostenta- 
tious in his charity, economical in his criticism, 
and generous in his good-will, he has left be- 
hind him a memory which will always be held 
sacred in the county of his birth." — Advance^ 
Kennett Square, Pa. 

" Death has stepped forward as the irresisti- 
ble arbiter, and the black shades of his funeral 
pall envelop to-day, August 23d, Chester 
county and distant limits beyond. 



yames Bowen Ever hart. 129 

** James B. Everhart is dead. 

" Three weeks ago to-day he was well ; three 
weeks ago to-day he was stricken with illness, 
which, by various changes and modifications, 
have laid this chieftain among men low in icy 
stillness. 

" No man in this community of his birth of 
ninety thousand people did more to honor it 
in life ; no man in his death will be more gener- 
ally or more sincerely mourned. Born, reared, 
and living all his days, except when absent as 
a student, a traveller, a soldier, or a statesman, 
in the midst of the sturdy sons and amiable 
and lovely daughters of Chester, James Bowen 
Everhart was their typical representative, 
proud of them and they were equally proud 
of him. 

" Of an ancestry that shared in the stirring 
history of every great epoch of this land from 
the Revolution down, whose fame and whose 
glory of record are emblazoned on the page that 
tells of perils on the field, of battle, and of 
shipwreck ; of the victories that come by care- 
ful nursing of resources ; of the character that 
is only possible by the purest methods and in- 
tercourse of life ; of mind-power that grasped 
the most occult facts of history, that suggests 



1 30 Life and Character of 

poetic measure ; — of all these he of whom we 
write was a fitting and honored representative. 
" Knowing him as we have many years, 
associated with him as we were in all his po- 
litical contests, as we look back one fact stands 
out preeminently to the credit of his char- 
acter, namely, his gentleness and his urbanity 
even under the most trying circumstances of 
party conflict, misrepresentation, and calumny. 
Never, we believe, was he heard to utter a 
harsh sentiment against or to wish ill of an 
opponent." — Messenger, Phoenixville, Pa. 

** In accordance with its usual indiscriminate 
selection, death has once more removed from 
Chester county a figure of more than ordinary 
interest ; he who held relationship with some 
of the most exalted endowments of life — a 
statesman, student, author, philosopher, — pecu- 
liarly gifted in all these traits, and in them all 
preeminent. Years of training had fitted him 
to fill any ofifice with which he was entrusted, 
doing honor to them all. Had he been willing 
to lower himself to the level of a second-rate 
politician to satisfy a certain element he would 
have died a Congressman, but culture forbade 



James Bawen Everhart, 131 

this, and being of a modest, retiring nature, he 
instinctively evaded such associates. Such a 
man was James B. Everhart, who, one week 
ago, became acquainted with life's final 
struggle." — Independent^ West Grove, Pa. 

In the Philadelphia North American the fol- 
lowing beautiful tribute was paid by Henry C. 
Townsend, Esq., a member of the Philadelphia 
bar: 

" As a friend from boyhood of the late Hon. 
James B. Everhart, who knew him well and 
esteemed him highly, I would ask the privi- 
lege of paying a tribute of respect to his mem- 
ory through your columns. 

" In his youth he exhibited the same traits 
of honesty of purpose, purity of personal char- 
acter, moral and physical courage, that so emi- 
nently distinguished his manhood. He was 
fortunate in his birth, and the favorable influ- 
ences which moulded his character in early life. 
His mother was a woman of singularly lovely 
nature, gentle, amiable, and affectionate, illus- 
trating in her daily life all the Christian virtues, 
while his father was a man of force and execu- 
tive ability, honorable and upright in all his 



1 3 2 Life and Charactei^ of 

dealings, a useful, public-spirited citizen, and a 
benefactor to the community which he served 
in a distinguished public capacity with honor 
and success. In the son were harmoniously 
blended the traits of character which distin- 
guished these worthy parents, and so perma- 
nently were they engrafted into his early 
nature and so lasting were the influences of his 
home training that, when he left the parental 
roof for college, and later in life for an extended 
tour and residence in foreign lands, the same 
firmness of moral principle and rectitude of 
personal conduct controlled his life. His 
tastes were eminently intellectual. He loved 
learning for its own sake. A diligent reader 
and student, gifted with a brilliant imagination 
and a wonderful use of language in the expres- 
sion of his thoughts, the little that he has 
given to the world in the way of literature — 
both in prose and poety — is only a proof of 
what he might have accomplished as a culti- 
vated man of letters had he devoted his time 
industriously to this sphere of intellectual 
labor. When he entered Princeton College in 
1839, ^t *h^ ^S^ o^ eighteen, he began a cor- 
respondence with the writer of this sketch, 



James Bowen Everhart, 133 

continued for many years both at home and 
abroad, some of which shows as vivid an imagi- 
nation, copious and varied diction, mature re- 
flection and sound judgment, as could be found 
in the published writings of now recognized 
leaders in the literary world. They refer to 
and discuss intelligently the characters and 
public services of such leaders of men as Henry 
Clay, Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, James 
Buchanan, Rufus Choate, and Thomas H. 
Benton, with all of whom he had a personal 
acquaintance, and with some of whom he, at 
that early period of his life, corresponded. 
His letters are treasures of bright originality, 
both in thought and expression. He was in 
early life ambitious of becoming a statesman 
in the broader and higher sense of that term. 
He had many of the remarkable natural gifts, 
such as originality of thought, innate honesty 
of purpose, a noble ambition to do good to his 
fellow-men, rich and varied diction and elo- 
quent expression in language and manner that 
distinguished in so marked a degree our own 
late Henry Armitt Brown. While pure in 
thought, chaste in expression, gentle in man- 
ner, kindly tolerant toward others in all honest 



1 34 Life and Character of 

differences of opinion, he was full of force and 
power, possessed in an eminent degree the 
courage of his convictions, and followed bravely 
to any point to which those convictions led 
him in the discharge of duty. His brave and 
patriotic career as a volunteer soldier of his 
country in her hour of extremest peril, his 
faithful public services to the State in the 
Senate and to the country in Congress are a 
conspicuous and honorable part of history. 
He scorned to use the devious and doubtful 
methods of the mere politician to achieve suc- 
cess. He preferred rather to lose the prize 
than win it by improper and irregular means. 
While a consistent member of another form of 
religious faith — the Presbyterian, — his life was 
passed among and his character and principles 
were perhaps formed and strengthened by the 
prevailing influence of the religious Society of 
Friends, so prominent in the community in 
which he was a recognized leader, whose prin- 
ciples he respected and whose confidence and 
support he enjoyed. A dutiful son, an affec- 
tionate brother, a good citizen, a firm friend, 
a faithful, upright, and honorable public offi- 
cial, he has passed away from works to re- 



James Bowen Ever hart. 135 

wards, full of honor, respect, and esteem, hav- 
ing earned the Divine benediction — * Well 
done, good and faithful servant,' — and leaving 
a reputation worthy of imitation by the youth 
of our land." 

" James B. Everhart, a citizen of West 
Chester, whose death is announced, was one 
of those men who are an honor to the commu- 
nity in which they live as to the country at 
large. Mr. Everhart was in public life and it 
is greatly to his credit that in all his transac- 
tions he was honorable and upright. No scan- 
dal ever attached to his name. He could not 
be bribed or bought. The interests of the 
people he faithfully guarded. He prevented 
the consummation of wrongs in matters of 
legislation. His duty was ever before him. 
By all he was respected and honored. His 
life was an honorable one ; his death is a 
serious loss to the community and State." — 
Daily TimeSy Norristown, Pa. 

** The death of Hon. James Bowen Ever- 
hart removes from the stage of political life 
one of the most charming actors whom a laud- 



1 36 Life and Character of 

able ambition, affluent circumstances, a liberal 
education, and an enquiring mind ever con- 
tributed to it. I do not mean that the late 
Senator Everhart was a political Booth, or 
that he held the relations in statesmanship 
which Henry Irving or Salvini does to the 
theatrical profession. But I do mean that he 
was a man of fine mind, thoroughly patriotic, 
inflexibly honest, and entirely devoted to what- 
ever public duties the various public offices he 
filled devolved upon him. Mr. Everhart was 
not a born politician in the sense in which 
that term is commonly used. He was more a 
scholar, and regarded politics philosophically, 
or rather he treated public questions from the 
standpoint of philosophy. And yet he was 
diplomatic, cautious, courteous. 

** Mr. Everhart served five years in the Sen- 
ate. He soon became an authority on consti- 
tutional questions and for that matter the 
Constitution was his hobby. Any measure 
that conflicted with the organic law was an- 
tagonized by him, and many a pet scheme of 
politicians of his own party was impaled with 
deadly effect on a point of order raised by 
Senator Everhart. Another hobby of his was 



yames Bmven Everhart, 137 

opposing legislation that provided heavy pen- 
alties for penal offences. Severe penalties he 
insisted degraded rather than reformed con- 
victs. 

* -x- * * * * -5^ 

*' His ruling passion was caution. He never 
committed himself on any subject outside of 
such as his official duties required a determina- 
tion. Then he was prompt and positive. But 
it was impossible to get an expression from 
him on any subject in controversy between 
men. He would not decide between oppos- 
ing candidates in his own party, and was as 
skilled in evading answers as Prince Metter- 
nich was in diplomacy," — Editor Harrisburg 
(Pa.) Telegraph, 

" The death of Hon. James B. Everhart, a 
notice of which appeared in last week's In- 
quirer, is a public calamity. Few public men 
of our State, of late years, have so endeared 
themselves to the moral and thoughtful classes 
of our people. He was a man of ripe culture, 
fine ability and unquestioned integrity. His 
public and private life was unspotted, and his 
patriotism pure and lofty." — Lancaster (Pa.) 
Inquirer, 



J 



8 Life and Character of 



** Pennsylvania has lost a loyal and worthy 
representative in the person of James B. Ever- 
hart, lawyer, soldier, State Senator and Con- 
gressman, who died after a two-weeks* illness. 
Mr. Everhart was one of those men, of whom 
there are happily always a few, who serve as the 
salt by which politics are kept from corruption. 
He was a man of great natural ability, a hard 
and untiring student, an observant traveller 
and a thorough well-equipped publicist, and 
his record, from whatever point of view it be 
regarded, is much more than respectable. But 
it is by his sterling integrity, his unselfish de- 
votion to the public interests, his clear-sighted 
recognition and advocacy of whatever prom- 
ised to promote the general good, and his en- 
lightened, unswerving, and effective opposition 
to whatever was inconsistent to the common 
weal, that he chiefly established a claim upon 
the respect and gratitude of his fellow-citizens, 
and it is by these that he will be best remem- 
bered. Old Chester county, prolific in good 
men, has had few better sons than James B. 
Everhart." — North Americaft, Philadelphia. 

*' James B. Everhart was a public man of a 



yames Bowen Ever hart. 139 

kind unfortunately rare in this country. He 
was public-spirited and conscientious. If his 
party did a thing which his judgment con- 
demned, that was no reasan to him why he 
should join in doing it. Because the majority 
in favor of an unrighteous act was almost 
unanimous, was no argument to him that the 
act was righteous. When in the State Legis- 
lature, he was conspicuous as the only one who 
declined to take extra pay when that question 
came up as a point of dispute. 

" The country needs more statesmen of the 
Everhart type — intelligent, conscientious, well- 
informed, superior to partisanship, anxious 
only to secure the good of all, impervious to 
the arguments of the lobby, steadily opposed 
to bad legislation, and withal quiet, retiring, 
speaking only on occasion and then to the 
point. Such a man was he, and such a man is 
hard to find in legislative halls, whether State 
or national. Mr. Everhart's death is a loss to the 
nation and the State as well as to the commu- 
nity in which he lived." — Inquirer^ Philadelphia. 

** The death of Hon. James B. Everhart is a 
public loss, not only to West Chester, but to 



1 40 Life and Character of 

the State at large. He was an accomplished 
gentleman, a true friend, and a pure man, and 
as such his death will lead every heart to feel 
that a great loss has been sustained in this 
community. 

'' His life-work was without ostentation, and 
yet he accomplished much for the public good. 
He was gentle, genial, and painstaking in all 
his associations with friends and acquaintances, 
and whether in the councils of the nation or 
at his own fireside, his high nature made him 
a true man in the fullest measure of the term. 
In speaking of him as one whose work is com- 
pleted, there will be none to say it was not 
well done." — Local Nezvs, West Chester, Pa. 

" Mr. Everhart was a polished gentleman, a 
scholar, and a poet, besides a very charitable 
citizen, his charities being bestowed in an un- 
ostentatious manner, as, indeed, were most of 
his acts performed. A close student, he spent 
much of the time during the years in which he 
was not in public life, among his books, having 
collected one of the finest private libraries in 
the State. A thoroughly classical student, he 
was accustomed, as an orator, to draw his exam- 



y antes Bowen Everhart. 141 

pies largely from writings of that character. 
His literary attainments and ability were recog- 
nized as being of a high order. In early years 
he contributed considerable poetry to the local 
press." — Daily Republican^ West Chester, Pa. 

LINES ON THE DEATH OF JAMES B. EVERHART. 

BY LEWIS R. HARLEY. 

The pall of death again is spread, 

About a peaceful home ; 
A soul is borne on angel wings, 

No more on earth to roam ; 
A spirit rises from the clay. 

Now clothed in endless life, 
And free from care and pain and sin, 

And angry battle strife. 

The death-knell sounds its mournful tones. 

And round the silent bier 
Kind friends in deepest sorrow move. 

And shed a silent tear. 
The saddened throngs on every side, 

With solemn step and slow. 
Approach the dark and narrow tomb, 

Where his cold form lies low. 



142 Life and Character of 

They did not bury all of earth 

Who kindly laid him there ; 
His name in ages yet to come 

Will glow with lustre fair. 
The holy muses fired his soul 

With poetry and song, 
The rhapsodies of sweetest verse 

Will echo far and long. 

His silver voice with cadence fine, 

On pageant holiday, 
Was often heard in flowing speech, 

And led the soul away 
To sunny lands beyond the sea, 

'Midst classic scenes of old. 
Where ancient gods in triumph reigned 

Through all the age of gold. 

A genial friend, and kind and true. 

We lose in his demise. 
But now he views the glory land. 

Beyond the vaulted skies. 
Where stars nor sun shall ever set, 

Or tempests ever roll, 
But where the ocean of God's love 

Will overwhelm the soul. 



James Bozven Ever hart. 143 

Speak tenderly of him for aye, 

And venerate his name, 
And may the spirit of his life 

Infuse us with its flame. 
And lead us in the path of truth, 

However rough its way. 
Till morning lights the eastern hills 

With the eternal day. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

TH E funeral took place on Monday, August 
27th, which was attended by over two 
thousand persons who came from all parts of 
the county and other localities. The funeral 
services were conducted by Rev. J. C. Caldwell, 
D.D., pastor of the First Presbyterian Church 
of West Chester ; assisted by Rev. William 
L. Bull, a Protestant Episcopal clergyman, 
who was an esteemed friend of Mr. Ever- 
hart ; and the Rev. William Newton, D.D., 
pastor of the Reformed Episcopal Church. 

The services were opened by the Rev. Mr. 
Bull, who read some portions of the Scriptures 
suitable to the occasion. He was followed by 
the Rev. Dr. Newton, who offered the accom- 
panying beautiful and sympathetic prayer : 

*' * Lord, thou hast been our Dwelling-place 
in all generations. Before the mountains were 
brought forth, or even Thou hadst formed the 
earth and the world, even from everlasting to 
everlasting, Thou art God. 

144 



y antes Bawen Everhart, 145 

" ' Thou turnest man to destruction ; and 
sayest, Return ye children of men. 

" ' For a thousand years in Thy sight are but 
as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in 
the night.' 

" And Thou remainest the same, O Thou 
Holy One of Israel. Unchanged by all the 
variations of our lot ; the same yesterday and 
to-day and forever ; the same in the counsels 
of Thy Throne ; the same in Thy heart of 
love ; the same in Thy Almighty arm of 
power. And so, Thou hast ever been a pres- 
ent help ; a refuge and a home to all who trust 
in Thee. And we are witnesses for Thee, this 
day, that there hath never failed us one of all 
the good things Thou hast spoken to us of. 
They have all come to pass according to Thy 
word ; and Thine has been the loving-kind- 
ness, and the faithfulness, and the truth. 

" And now, Thou hast come near and laid 
Thine hand upon this stricken family, by tak- 
ing their loved one to Thyself. We are not 
afraid. The darkness of this hour is not in 
Thee, but in ourselves. In Thy light we can 
see light, even through our tears. And so we 
come with childlike confidence, and ask that 



1 46 Life and Character of 

Thine own great calm may come into our souls 
to-day. Teach us to be still, and know that 
Thou art God — our loving Father, always, 
even though Thy way is in the sea, and Thy 
paths in the great waters ; and when Thy foot- 
steps are not known. And so we come ac- 
cording to Thine own command, to weep with 
those who weep, and help these stricken ones 
to bear the burden of the great sorrow Thou 
hast laid upon them. We bless Thee for the 
pure life, the stainless character, and the Chris- 
tian example of Thy servant whom now Thou 
hast taken to Thyself. We bless Thee for the 
Truth Thou hadst given to him, and for its 
outshining in his daily life. May the voice 
that has called him hence reach every heart 
to-day. Teach us what shadows we are, and 
what shadows we pursue. Teach us that 
Thou alone art great ; Thou alone art abid- 
ing. Oh ! teach us that he builds too low 
who builds not on the rock of Thine own ever- 
lasting Truth in Jesus Christ our Lord. Com- 
fort this stricken family. Stay their souls 
on Thee. Make them strong in Thine own 
strength. And may the tears which they shed 
in this hour of their grief be bright with the 



y antes Bcwen Ever hart. 147 

radiance of a hope full of immortality ! Bless 
this dispensation of Thy providence to this 
bereaved family ; to the Church, bereaved with 
them ; and to this entire community ! May 
we all, like obedient children, hear when Thou 
speakest. And when we are called to depart 
hence, may it be with a conscience void of of- 
fence, in the comfort of a reasonable, religious, 
and holy hope, and in the assurance of a joy- 
ous resurrection — through Jesus Christ our 
Lord ! Amen." 

The Rev. Dr. Caldwell, with much feeling, 
made the following address : 

" It is not difificult to find circumstances in 
which death is a welcome messenger. When 
the grasshopper has become a burden, when 
the daughters of music have ceased to charm 
with their melody, when the recognition of 
friends is no longer a possession of our beloved, 
death is a sweet relief. We then lay the aged 
one away to rest, sweet rest. 

** Or when disease has wrought its sad havoc, 
wasted the body of our dear one to painful 
emaciation, when delirium has beclouded the 
soul, we cannot forbid a gladness because 



148 Life and Character of 

death has disjoined the spirit from its ruined 
tabernacle. 

** To-day we find no relief to our agonized 
hearts in either of these circumstances, for 
neither old age nor the delirium of wasting 
sickness had touched with ruinous touch the 
body or the mind of him whose mortal part 
we lay in the tomb in the hope of a blessed 
resurrection. 

"A mystery surrounds us now, for why 
should James Everhart have died ? He was 
in the vigor of manhood. He was ardently 
loved in this home of brothers and sisters, out 
of which years ago went father and mother. 
This community had not done with this man. 
His fellow-citizens could have still used him in 
the high places of state. No explanation of 
what has now taken place can now be given, 
except the explanation which quiets the heart, 
humbly believing God does all things well. 
A servant of God, who has been blind for more 
than thirty years, who never saw the faces of 
his two sons, one of whom has just died, said, 
out of a triumphant trust : * God makes no 
mistakes.' Ye who have confidence, firm and 
true, can also say here in the presence of this 



yames Bowen Everhart, 149 

inscrutable event : * God makes no mistakes.* 
He has called home a son of His, because He 
sees that son's work is done. Though our 
hearts bleed, we say, with unquestioning re- 
liance on God's wisdom and goodness: *Thy 
will be done.' 

" The friend to whom had been assigned the 
office of making the personal remarks at this 
time finds himself overwhelmed with a sense 
of his loss, and cannot trust his power of self- 
control to speak of his friend whom he knew 
so well. To me, therefore, falls the duty of 
saying some things which ought to be said 
concerning our departed brother. Panegyric 
would be offensive, even eulogy long dwelt on 
would not be acceptable to those who knew 
James Everhart most intimately and so loved 
best. But the community and the State and 
the Church have a right to hear some things 
concerning him who occupied so honorable a 
place in each, 

'^ I did not have the privilege and pleasure of 
what is called an intimate acquaintance, but I 
knew James Everhart well enough to see most 
clearly that he was far more than ordinary 
man. We have a right to claim him as one 



1 50 Life and Character of 

who among us was decidedly on the side of 
truth and righteousness, and who sought, as 
he understood them, the best interests of our 
beloved country. Certain marked qualities of 
soul were his, a few of which I am glad to 
speak of. It would do good to dwell on these 
at length, but this cannot now be done. 

*' James B. Everhart had delightful simplicity 
of character. This simplicity was a mark of 
strength, not of weakness. His personality 
was not a confused medley of diverse or con- 
trary elements. He was somewhat of a recluse 
in his habits ; still, his was not a hidden soul. 
He did not wear his heart upon his sleeve, yet 
men easily and quickly understood him. He 
lived in the light where all could see him who 
had any honest wish to know what he was. 
They that came nearest to him testify to his 
being one of the common folk, having no airs, 
but standing on the broad platform of a puri- 
fied humanity. He was a plain man, and 
grasped the hands of plain men with a warmth 
which meant that he was their fellow. 

*' James B. Everhart had genuine modesty 
of character. He disliked show, and tinsel 
offended him. He did not strongly assert self, 



James Bowen Everhart, 1 5 1 

yet he stood like a rock for principle. Some 
who have no appreciation of modesty, and 
others who know nothing of it as a beautiful 
feature of the soul, thought him who possessed 
it in so remarkable a degree, to be proud and 
aristocratic, while in fact he was the very 
opposite. He came forward, not on his own 
motion, but because friends knew his worth to 
be just what we need in places of high trust. 
He was not without his ambitions, yet these 
ambitions were in perfect accord with his for- 
getfulness of self, and rendered him all the 
more fit to take and to do the duties which 
came f9r his doing. It must be admitted that 
his modesty of character hindered him from 
being the dazzling spectacle of the blusterer ; 
yet who of his friends wished to see him in the 
dust and filth of a contest, where mean men 
and corrupt men are able to make the loudest 
uproar, and are pleasing to those who find 
their almost brutish delight in noise and swag- 
ger ? Our brother's disposition made him hate 
brawls, whether on the rostrum, or in the 
forum, or in the legislative hall ; but it gave 
him courage in the right and in the pure and 
in the good. He did not hesitate to assert 



152 Life and Character of 

himself when assertion of self was demanded 
for a good purpose, yet even then he would be 
out of sight as quickly as manly honor would 
permit. 

** Intermingled with simplicity and modesty, 
yet having its own place, was the element of 
sincerity in James B. Everhart's character. 
While he meant no more than he said, he 
meant all he said. He was a true man, mis- 
interpreted at times, but never fairly charged 
with duplicity or deceit. He was not all smiles, 
for he could say * No * with mighty strength to 
that which did not approve itself to his con- 
science. Sometimes they who liked him not, 
or were his antagonists in warm contests, 
imagined his sincerity was open to impeach- 
ment ; but their suspicion might have found 
its reason in the reflection of a jealousy or a 
selfishness which are foreign to him but native 
to them. He sought his ends not by tortuous 
courses, but in straight lines that were easy to 
follow, except by those whose brains being in 
a whirl make them fancy the crooked the only 
way to a righteous purpose. 

** James B. Everhart was a man of the strict- 
est integrity. His word was truth itself; his 



James Bowen Ever hart. 153 

business relations were in the control of a con- 
science which was scrupulous to the last degree 
of exactness. This is the testimony of all who, 
because of their own integrity, are entitled to 
give their witness here. His own he esteemed 
at its true value ; what was others, if entrusted 
to his care, or involved in his business life, he 
guarded with unceasing vigilance, and rested 
not till the last farthing had reached its proper 
place. More, his integrity was not alone in 
the region of dollars and cents, or in that of 
acres and bonds, but was as emphatic in all the 
relations which one man bears to another. 
He had no counterfeit, but dealt in pure coin 
in speech and in behavior and in life, whether 
in private or in public. 

** James B. Everhart had made great intellec- 
tual acquirements, and was a man of unusual 
literary culture. He was no mean poet ; he 
was widely read in history ; he knew the opin- 
ions as well as the ascertained facts of the 
scientist ; he had learned much of the philoso- 
phers of Greece and Rome, and had refined 
his tastes in careful study of the great men 
who used these tongues. He had not passed by 
the theologies, in which human hearts feel or 



154 ^if^ ^^^ Character of 

speculate with the warmest enthusiasm. His 
books constantly grew in numbers, because 
his thirst to know the beautiful and the 
good and the true was the insatiable thirst 
of a soul which can only be satisfied in 
God. 

*' That which rounded out the character of 
James B. Everhart, that which gave beauty to 
every feature, was his unfaltering faith in the 
Lord Jesus Christ. He was a Christian man in 
that he followed, and daily prayed for likeness 
to, his Divine Master and Redeemer. His re- 
ligious profession was not a loud profession, 
but it soared quietly yet certainly into the 
heights of confession in his every-day life. He 
never failed to find his place in God's house 
for worship, unless some unavoidable hindrance 
stood in his way. Thither he brought a ser- 
vice warm in the flame of a devotion which 
never waned. 

** James B. Everhart was one of God's own 
noblemen. We bury his body to-day in the 
hope of a glorious resurrection. Hence we 
sorrow not as those who have no hope. The 
streaming tears do not prevent us from saying 
* Glory to God in the Highest ! ' 



yames Bowen Ever hart, 155 

' Go to the grave, for there thy Saviour lay- 
In death's embraces, ere He rose on high ; 

And all the ransomed, by that narrow way, 
Pass to eternal life beyond the sky. 

Go to the grave ? no, take thy seat above : 
Be thy pure spirit present with the Lord, 

Where thou for faith and hope hast perfect 
love. 
And open vision for the written word.' " 

After this beautiful address Dr. Caldwell 
closed the services with a prayer. In that quiet 
and picturesque **City of the Dead" — Oak- 
lands Cemetery — the remains of Mr. Everhart 
were committed, with a short prayer by Dr. 
Caldwell and the benediction by Rev. Joseph 
S. Evans, pastor of the Goshen Baptist Church, 
to an ivy and evergreen lined tomb. 

James Bowen Everhart was by nature one 
who was fitted to fill the highest ranks in the 
councils of state. He was a grand represen- 
tative of honest manhood, moral manhood, 
and brave manhood ; so just, so unselfish, and 
so kind. He never uttered a revengeful word, 
and his ways were those to win men. Never 
repelling, except towards that which was 



156 y antes Bowen Ever hart, 

wrong. He died as he had lived, a modest 
Christian man ; and thus no greater tribute 
could be accorded to his memory than the 
tears which were silently shed upon his grave 
by those who admired his brave, affectionate, 
and gentle spirit. His memory will ever be 
revered by his friends, and it will stand forth 
as a beacon in the community to an honorable 
and peaceful end to those who will follow. 



